Giorgio Armani Runway

A runway show is a designer's argument made at walking pace, and the shows of Giorgio Armani are judged against a standard the designer set personally: tailoring softened until it moves with the body — the suit as a symbol of success, made easy enough to live in. Look by look, the presentations in Milan restate the signatures — soft, unstructured tailoring — the men's 'power suits' that appeared on Miami Vice and on Richard Gere in the 1980 film American Gigolo — and fluid dresses cut with the same ease — as a complete wardrobe rather than a set of isolated pieces. This page follows the runway strand of the record in this guide.

The Photos section gathers runway photography across the seasons, and the search routes in the references run Giorgio Armani runway news, photo and video searches. Pair this page with the fashion week page for the calendar around the shows, and with the collections page for the seasons filed in order. The designer's official website is linked in the references.

Illustrative image created for this guide — an artistic impression, not this designer's own garments.

The Show as a Wardrobe Argument

A house with permanent signatures presents differently from a house chasing novelty. The Giorgio Armani show proposes the standard — the garments the designer is known for, in the season's handling — and then proves it across the whole wardrobe, exit by exit, so the photographs gathered in the Photos section read as chapters of one argument rather than a catalogue of separate pieces. The variation is in the proportions, the fabrics and the finishing; the argument does not change, because it rests on the designer's central conviction about how clothes should serve the person wearing them.

Runway photographs reward sequence for exactly that reason. A single image shows a famous shape; a full set shows the system beneath it — the tailoring and soft pieces answering each other, the accessories completing every look, the day clothes and evening clothes cut from the same idea. Video adds what stills cannot: the clothes at walking pace, which is where construction tells the truth — cloth that follows the stride instead of fighting it.

Reading the Runway Record

Filed show over show, the runway record becomes the most vivid part of the archive: dated, photographed, and inseparable from the biography on the profiles page — Born on July 11, 1934, in Piacenza, Italy, Giorgio Armani completed his military service, dropped out of university and went to work at La Rinascente, the famous Milan department store, then joined the staff of Nino Cerruti as a designer. With the encouragement of his friend Sergio Galeotti he began freelance design work, and the two became business partners, founding Giorgio Armani S.p.A. in July 1975. His first collection — a men's clothing line — debuted that year, and a women's collection followed the next year to a warm reception. His popularity skyrocketed in America in the 1980s: Richard Gere wore his signature garb in American Gigolo (1980), his men's 'power suits' appeared frequently on Miami Vice, and wearing Armani became a symbol of success. Galeotti died in 1985, and Armani proved as talented an executive as a designer; in 2005 he debuted his first haute couture line. The spring fashions page follows the runway's lighter strand and the fall fashions page its autumn weight; the news page gathers the reviews each showing receives.

For the calendar view of the same events, turn to the fashion week page in this series. The runway is where that calendar becomes visible — the standard, re-presented in Milan each season, in front of the photographers whose pictures fill the Photos section here.

Photos