GIORGIO ARMANI, 86, SHOWS NO SIGNS OF SLOWING DOWN WITH SPRING/SUMMER 2022 MENSWEAR COLLECTION

Home is the starting place of love, hopes and dreams. For 86-year-old fashion designer, Giorgio Armani, his residence in Milan’s via Borgonuovo, in the Palazzo Orsini headquarters, is where he began his fashion adventure.

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So that proved to be the perfect place to set up a catwalk hangar and invite 100 specially invited guests. It was the first in-attendance show after the hardest pandemic to have hit the world in modern times. On display was the 2022 Spring Summer Menswear Collection for Armani.

Canada’s best luxury website: Armani says he is still going strong at 86

What does Armani think of his fashion legacy?

“Man must be born, live and die with that allure,” Armani told the press and fashion enthusiasts at the fashion soirée. “On the woman, you can have a little fun. But on the man you don’t have fun. Mind you, it is useless for me to try to be like the others because it is me.”

Despite being in his golden years and dispensing with rumours of a Ferrari merger, the fashion virtuoso says he is going strong and is well in command.

“I’m still the one at the driving seat. I have built all this in over 40 years of my career. And I have made specific and detailed plans for the future. So, there is no need for people to get stressed out.”

The Collection: Casual, cool and calm

“I go back to the origins. Classic is an appropriate way of doing things. In this collection, I have interpreted the concept with the utmost ease, without excess and aspiring only to freshness.”

The Armani look is synchronized: black tulips on a white pullover or vice-versa, a grey checkered suit, trousers cut to the knee. There are pleats made in the same pinstripe wool, or the jacket-vest with Bermuda-type shorts, characterized blue to sand tones and chalk white, with notes of red and green that recall the world of nature.

“I wanted to refresh the idea of the suit, in the evening. A shirt coordinated with the trousers of the same fabric is enough. During the day a jacket cut like a denim jacket but in very light pinstripe wool. And then, suddenly, touches of colour.”

Positive mood

“The overall attitude is very light, because I think we have all learned to be informal and more relaxed in the way we dress. Re-imagined, so it is no longer composed of a blazer and a pair of trousers.”

Fashion advice

“I do not like it when people are worn by clothes instead of wearing them,” says Giorgio Armani. “This has become even more important in the current situation. In a way, the pandemic has proved that my intuition of a timeless and effortless style has always been a valuable one. And this is exactly what I would like to convey with this collection. It’s an idea of comfort that is more in sync with the times that we are living.”

Ominous farewell

Ending the show, some of the models wore dreadful bacterial masks. That was a stark reminder of the pandemic dangers still looming around the world.

“I hope we are careful not to get caught up in the orgasm of the party. Because it doesn’t take much to fall back into the abyss we have lived. I am sure that we have all done our utmost to offer a live experience in total safety. I’m the first to reopen with extreme awareness.”

Armani, who spent 15 days in the hospital due to a fall that caused his left humerus bone to rupture, closed the show for the first time with his long-time companion and collaborator Leo Dell’Orco. Is Armani passing the baton to a new successor?

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