Giorgio Armani

• 1. Introduction

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  Giorgio Armani died on the 4th of September 2025, aged 91, and around 15,000 people attended his public wake at the Armani/Teatro in Milan. They came for a man who spent decades making jackets look softer and more relaxed than tailoring had ever allowed. He also built a house that sold clothes, perfume, hotel rooms and sports kits under a single name.

  The story begins far from any runway. A boy grew up poor in wartime and was badly hurt. He first trained as a doctor, then served as a soldier. How did he end up dressing film stars and pop singers?

  What turned a department-store window dresser into the head of a company that stretched from Milan to Shanghai and Dubai? And what was the man like away from the cameras, in a life he guarded so closely?

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• 2. A Boy in Piacenza

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  Giorgio Armani was born on the 11th of July 1934 in Piacenza, to Ugo Armani, an accountant for a transport company, and Maria Raimondi. He had an older brother, Sergio, and a younger sister, Rosanna.

  The family lived in poverty through the Second World War. As a child, Giorgio played with an unexploded artillery shell, and it went off. He was severely burned, and one of his close friends was killed.

  At the Liceo Scientifico Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, he dreamed of an army career, especially after reading The Citadel by A. J. Cronin. He still enrolled in the medicine department of the University of Milan. After three years, in 1953, he left and joined the army.

  His medical studies earned him a posting to the Military Hospital in Verona. There he went to shows at the Arena. Eventually he decided to look for another career, and the one he found began on the shop floor of a Milan department store.

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• 3. Shop Floor Lessons

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  In 1957, after two years in uniform, Armani took a job at La Rinascente, a department store in Milan, dressing windows and serving customers. That same year he was responsible for showing the first garments from Marimekko, the innovative Finnish company known for textiles, clothing and home furnishings. He then became a seller in the menswear department, and the work taught him how fashion is marketed.

  By the mid-1960s he had moved to the firm of Nino Cerruti, where he designed menswear. His skills were so sought after that he also freelanced for the next decade. At times he supplied designs to as many as ten manufacturers at once.

  In the late 1960s he met Sergio Galeotti, an architectural draftsman. In 1973, Galeotti persuaded him to open a design office at 37 Corso Venezia in Milan. From there Armani freelanced for several fashion houses, including Allegri, Bagutta, Hilton, Sicons, Gibò, Montedoro and Tendresse.

  Runway shows at the Sala Bianca in the Pitti Palace in Florence brought quick recognition from the international press. The experience pushed Armani to develop his style in new directions. By 1975 he was ready to put his energy into a label of his own.

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• 4. Building the House

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  On the 24th of July 1975, Armani and Galeotti founded Giorgio Armani S.p.A. in Milan. That October he presented his first men's ready-to-wear collection under his own name, for Spring and Summer 1976. A women's line for the same season appeared alongside it.

  A 1978 agreement with Gruppo Finanzario Tessile, known as GFT, changed how luxury could be made. It allowed high-end ready-to-wear to be produced in a manufacturing setting while the designer supervised closely. In 1979, after founding the Giorgio Armani Corporation, he began producing for the United States and launched the Main line for men and women.

  In 1983 he revised the GFT agreement. The company began making the Mani line for America, along with his top ready-to-wear line. That line was renamed Borgonuovo 21, after the address of the company headquarters.

  Early in the 1980s, a major agreement with L'Oréal led to perfumes and cosmetics under the name Armani Beauty. The Armani Junior, Armani Jeans and Emporio Armani lines followed. Armani wanted something younger, with the same stylistic quality as his high-end line but at a more accessible price. He also felt that he needed new and unconventional ways to advertise.

  In 1982 came Emporio underwear, swimwear and accessories. A new Milan store opened for the Emporio line, followed by the first Giorgio Armani boutique.

  The late 1980s and early 1990s brought Armani Japan, eyeglasses, socks, a gift collection and a basic line for America called A/X Armani Exchange. In 1991 he introduced AX Armani Exchange, a line of casual everyday clothing such as T-shirts, aimed at younger consumers and the American mass market.

  In 1998, Armani opened his first store in China, a small shop in Beijing. A flagship in Shanghai followed in 2004, with plans for 40 stores by 2011. Along the way he drew inspiration from other cultures, and the Oxford Art Journal cited his Japanese designs as an example.

  In 2000, investment in the brand rose, including stock sales and new manufacturing capacity meant to give him more control over quality and distribution. By 2009 the retail network counted 60 Giorgio Armani boutiques, 11 Collezioni, 122 Emporio Armani, 94 A/X Armani Exchange, one Giorgio Armani Accessori and 13 Armani Junior stores. They were spread over 37 countries. As of 2017, annual turnover stood at $1.6 billion and his personal fortune at $8.1 billion.

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• 5. Power Suit, Big Screen

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  The New York Times gave Armani the title "Fashion's Master of the Power Suit". His minimalist, deconstructed jackets and suits loosened the stiffness of older tailoring. Men in suits felt sophisticated, and women gained a way to project authority in formal settings such as the workplace. His biggest mark was on how women wore suits.

  In 1980, Armani worked on the costumes for American Gigolo, dressing Richard Gere as the lead character, Julian Kaye. In one scene, Gere yanks open a drawer of Armani shirts, perfectly folded with their labels showing. He then puts together four outfits, all of them Armani. The film carried the name to a far broader audience.

  The Untouchables, from 1987, was one of the most important of the more than one hundred films Armani costumed. He saw a link with cinema as essential, both for promotion and for creative stimulus.

  In 1996, his long-time friend, the singer Eric Clapton, composed songs for Armani's fashion shows and has dressed in Armani since. Later that year Clapton opened two Emporio Armani stores in New York City. In 1998, Armani hosted a party for Clapton's Crossroads guitar auction.

  The pop star Lady Gaga wore many Armani stage outfits, including on her record-breaking Monster Ball Tour and Born This Way Ball Tour. Armani also designed for award shows, among them the 52nd Grammy Awards and the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards.

  In 2019, Armani introduced his first fine jewellery collection during Haute Couture Week in Paris. Sophia Loren, Brie Larson and Brooke Shields have since worn his pieces at high-profile events. The 2022 Josephine collection, inspired by Joséphine de Beauharnais, set paisley motifs with chalcedony and grey diamonds.

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• 6. Beyond the Wardrobe

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  The Guggenheim Museum in New York hosted an exhibition of Armani's work, a first for a living designer, with an average attendance of 29,000 a week. Larry Shiner and Yulia Kriskovets referred to it in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

  In 1990, Armani supported the MoMA exhibition Pier Paolo Pasolini: The Eyes of a Poet. He donated a copy of Pasolini's film Accattone, from 1961. In 2015 he took part in the Paris Photography Public Programme, where his ACQUA #6 presented photographic works on the theme of water.

  In 2008, he designed a bullfighting costume called the "Goyesco". The Spanish bullfighter Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez wore it at the "Corrida Goyesca" in Ronda, Spain.

  In 2005, Giorgio Armani S.p.A. signed a long-term licensing agreement with Emaar Properties PJSC for a global collection of luxury hotels and resorts. Emaar would oversee construction, management and operations, while Armani kept creative control over interiors, furnishings and overall style. The Armani Hotel opened in the Burj Khalifa in Dubai on the 27th of April 2010. It fills the bottom 39 floors of the tower, with 160 guest rooms and suites and 144 residences. Armani also designed the interiors of the Armani Residences in the same building, along with a line of products from the Armani/Casa home collection.

  Armani Musica presents the Emporio Armani Caffè compilations. These CDs were curated by Armani with the DJ and sound designer Matteo Ceccarini. They mix conceptual sounds with underground rhythms.

  Olimpia Milano, the basketball club Armani owned and presided over, has a record that includes six Serie A titles, four Coppa Italia titles, four Supercoppa Italiana titles and the 2021 EuroLeague Final Four. He supported Inter Milan in football, and also voiced support for AC Milan. Even so, he said Olimpia Milano was his favourite because it united the city of Milan.

  Armani designed suits for the England national football team twice. Since August 2007, he has dressed the players of the London club Chelsea, which also commissioned a new look for its Directors' Suite at Stamford Bridge. He designed the Italian flag bearers' outfits at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. For the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, he designed Italy's uniforms. He also made uniforms for the Italian Olympic and Paralympic teams and for Piacenza Calcio 1919, the football club of his birthplace.

  The EA7 range was inspired by the Ukrainian footballer Andriy Shevchenko, who then played for AC Milan and wore the number 7 shirt. Beginning in 2021, Armani became an official supplier to Scuderia Ferrari under a multi-year sponsorship, providing official and travel clothing for the team. His last sport partnership design was with Juventus.

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• 7. Principles and Privacy

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  On the 24th of January 2007, Armani broadcast his Armani Privé Spring/Summer 2007 show live on the internet, the first haute couture collection shown that way in the world. The show reached viewers through MSN and Cingular cellular phones.

  That same year, he became the first designer to ban models with a body mass index under 18. The decision followed the death of Ana Carolina Reston, a model who had worked for his company and who died of anorexia nervosa in 2006.

  In 2011, he became the first luxury designer to accept the Green Carpet Challenge from Livia Giuggioli Firth, which highlighted sustainable fashion made from recycled plastics and fabrics. His entries were a dress for her and a tuxedo for her then-husband, the actor Colin Firth.

  Armani was an intensely private man, yet in an interview with Vanity Fair he said he had relationships with both men and women. His longstanding personal relationship was with Sergio Galeotti, the partner who had pushed him to open that first design office. Galeotti died of complications from AIDS in 1985. Armani credited him with empowering him to pursue the business, and he called his inability to prevent that death the greatest failure of his career.

  In 2015 he reflected on Galeotti: "When I travel, I bring his photograph. There is something that remains. His spirit lingers. For sure. He lives on. I see Sergio everywhere, and I am sure he sees me. And I have hope that whatever I have done, he knows about it."

  That same year, in an interview with The Sunday Times, he spoke about how gay men should present themselves in public: "A homosexual man is 100% a man. He doesn't need to dress like a homosexual."

  Armani had no children. His sister Rosanna, once a fashion model and long regarded as his muse, was the person he credited with introducing him to the fashion industry. Rosanna, his nieces Silvana and Roberta Armani, and his nephew Andrea Camerana were all closely involved in the business when he died. According to his family, he spent much of his free time on his yacht and loved sailing.

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• 8. Honours and Farewell

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  In 2001, Vogue acclaimed Armani as the "most successful designer of Italian origin". That same year, Time said he had "forever changed the way people think about clothes", something most designers rarely manage.

  The honours ran across decades. He received the Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion in 1979, and in 1983 the Council of Fashion Designers of America named him best international designer. In 1987 the same body gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award for menswear. He became an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 2008 and received the Compasso d'Oro Career Award in 2014. In 2019 came the Outstanding Achievement Award at The Fashion Awards, and in 2021 he was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

  In June 2025, Armani was absent from Milan Fashion Week, the first time he had missed one of his own runway shows. He had reportedly been in declining health for months. The cause of death was liver failure, at his home in Milan. At that time Forbes estimated his net worth at $12.1 billion.

  On the 8th of September, the day of his funeral, all Armani stores closed for an afternoon of mourning, including in Milan. He was buried in a private ceremony at his family's chapel in Rivalta di Gazzola, in Piacenza Province.

  The BBC said he had "revolutionised fashion" and that no designer had brought such a "lasting change in the way people dress" since Coco Chanel. Le Monde called him "one of the last great makers of modern fashion". Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni named him a "symbol of the best of Italy". The French businessman Bernard Arnault credited him with a "unique style" and with pushing Italian elegance to a global scale.

  On the 12th of September, his two final wills were released. They instructed his heirs to sell an initial 15% minority stake in his businesses, with priority given to LVMH, EssilorLuxottica or L'Oréal.

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