A hard act to follow, it’s no wonder Armani never appointed a successor

Armani with his spring/summer 2025 collection in New York, Oct 2024 - Reuters

When I asked Giorgio Armani shortly before his show in New York last October how he planned to spend his time in retirement (he’d recently announced to one of Italy’s leading newspapers, Corriere della Sera, that he planned to retire in two to three years), he already appeared to be rowing back. “I’d like to spend my time in total relaxation, at one of my homes,” he told me. “But the truth is, I’ve worked all my life and wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I simply wasn’t born to be idle, so three years could easily become many more.”

Somehow, he could never put clear succession plans in place. He had various members of his family, notably his niece Roberta, but none emerged as the clear heir. “Of course I care what happens when I’m gone,” he told me last year. “But I’m still working out who should take over.”

While the existing studio team will sustain Armani’s creative vision in the immediate future, many minds will be considering who could lead the house long-term. Hedi Slimane, master of modern tailoring, would be a smart choice. Clare Waight Keller would be a sensitive successor. Silvana Armani, the head of women’s design for the Armani group, or Leo Dell’Orco, head of men’s design (who took a bow in Armani’s place at the past two men’s shows) are also likely successors.

Armani, born in Piacenza in 1934, with his pets - Getty

He didn’t show signs of slowing down. At the end of 2024, to mark his 90th birthday, and the 50th anniversary of his brand, he showed his spring 2025 collection in New York. Not entirely coincidentally, he’d just opened a three-storey flagship at 760 Madison Avenue, in a $400 million complex which also contained The Armani Residences, a selection of apartments priced between $8 million and $32 million. All had sold. The store itself took $3 million dollars in two days. Safe to say, Giorgio Armani never stopped being in style.

Possibly his workaholism filled an emotional void. Sergio Galeotti, the love of his life and the person who first convinced him he might have a successful career as a fashion designer, died in 1985. Armani gave every impression of never really having found a soulmate to replace him.

He had, however, taken considered steps to secure his legacy, financial and creative. He has his own museum in Milan. Meanwhile, the Giorgio Armani Foundation, which he established in 2016, will probably play a key role in overseeing the company and protecting its independence, supporting his favourite charities and ensuring that his designated heirs have no grounds to bicker over his alleged £9 billion fortune.

Delicately handsome, he followed a relatively ascetic routine – particularly compared with the hedonism of his then contemporaries, Halston, Calvin Klein, Claude Montana – rising at 6am, working out in the morning and evening, right until the end, and slipping out early from the celebrity encrusted parties that were regularly held in his honour. He was proud of his slim, athletic, tanned frame, always appearing at the end of his catwalk in a torso-con navy T-shirt and chinos.

The uniform was a manifestation of his meticulous rejection of the superfluous, rather than a sign of humility. One of the more appealing aspects of Armani, particularly as an interview subject, was that he suffered neither from false modesty nor “media training”. Even in an era of cancellation, he was gloriously unfiltered.

Armani with model Nadja Auermann during his party in New York, 1996 - Reuters

Completely in charge of his company – he rebuffed all approaches to buy into it – he had nothing to lose. His spats with Anna Wintour, who often skipped his shows, Gianni Versace (a designer whose drive he admired even though he couldn’t get on board with his taste) and Dolce e Gabbana (“vulgar”) were nothing if not entertaining and usually contained truth bombs even if they didn’t tell the whole story. He criticised John Galliano, whose theatricality he found increasingly excessive and Miuccia Prada. “She lives more in the world of Miuccia Prada than in the real world. She doesn’t think about the fact that her dresses have to be worn by normal women,” he told Corriere della Sera.

Not having children, he said, had increasingly struck him as a loss as he aged. He found solace in Bianca, the five-year-old daughter of one of his employees. “I consider her almost like my own, and this made me realise that I would have been a great dad.”

Conventional fatherhood was not to be. Instead, he birthed one of the last great founder-fashion-houses. Giorgio Armani the brand, which he launched in 1975, not only remained in private ownership (his) but introduced a new way of dressing to millions of men – and shortly after – women. Like Chanel and Saint Laurent, two designers he very much admired, he developed a unique and original way of dressing. “Very Armani” became shorthand for an offhand glamour that’s as compelling today as it was half a century ago.

Those dressed in Armani ‘always looked good, relaxed and confident’ - Getty

In Armani’s hands, the soft Italian tailoring that originated in Naples became louche and sexy. Beige became synonymous with sun-kissed luxury rather than drab mundanity. The restless gracefulness of Richard Gere, pacing wolfishly through American Gigolo in 1980, found a purity and anchor in the calm restraint of Armani’s suiting that he wore throughout the film, and introduced the Milanese designer to the wider non-fashion world. Armani must have been grateful every day for Gere’s poise (and Gere’s co-star, Lauren Hutton, who dripped sex appeal from every pore in her Armani trench coat). John Travolta, at that time, the most famous actor in the world after Saturday Night Fever, was originally cast. Then Paul Schrader (American Gigolo’s director) changed his mind – luckily for Armani, who pointed out with characteristic bluntness, “Travolta absolutely wasn’t the character who could wear my clothes with flair and elegance’’.

He went on to costume some 200 films and countless celebrities in real life. In 1989, Michelle Pfeiffer, at the height of her career, stepped onto the Oscars’ red carpet in a black Armani tuxedo, a fashion changing moment that demonstrated to a global public the full fire-power of minimalism. The Oscars’ organisers took note. Despairing of the naffness of most other red carpet outfits , the following year they invited Armani to step in.

Anna Wintour, Giorgio Armani, Julia Roberts and George Clooney at the Met Gala in 2008 - Getty

At the 1990 Oscars he dressed, among others, Kim Basinger , Robert De Niro, Steven Spielberg, Julia Roberts, Jodie Foster, Denzel Washington, Daryl Hannah, Steve Martin. Tom Cruise, Jeff Goldblum…Womens Wear Daily subsequently dubbed the night “The Armani Awards”. The label has remained in demand on red carpets, right up until now, with Cate Blanchett a notable flag waver, re-wearing an Armani Privé gown at the Venice Film Festival last week that she’d worn on the red carpet three years prior. In recent years, A-listers increasingly requested “vintage” Armani. (“They don’t have a clue,” one stylist told me. “Armani lends them something that’s two years old and they think it’s from deep within the archives.”)

Cate Blanchett wore an Armani Privé gown at the Venice Film Festival last week that she had previously worn three years ago - WireImage

This was a telling detail that hinted at Giorgio the man’s strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side, his house clearly stands for something immediately identifiable – a highly aspirational European, pared back classiness that has been copied by many, many others. “Too much,” he observed last year. “For years by Calvin Klein, and not just by him. Even today, they’re still at it”.

In the debit column, Armani’s omnipotence in his own company meant he could be stubbornly deaf to the views of others and somewhat stuck in his ways. His shows, which he insisted on styling himself, resulted in some questionable accessorising, make-up and very thin models and could seem excessively long. Had he perhaps hired a younger co-designer to work alongside him as an equal (as the disparaged Miuccia Prada has with Raf Simons), he could have made them more accessible to younger generations of influencers and actors would be thrilled to wear current Armani rather than “vintage”.

Giorgio Armani after his women’s spring/summer 2019 show as part of Milan Fashion Week, Sept 2018 - Getty

Yet, for those who cared to look closely, the core principles of Armani Style were always there – the timeless tailoring with that discreet but seductive draping was always present. The attention deficit crowd may not have been able to see it, preferring the TikTok friendly antics of designers such as Balenciaga’s recently departed creative director, Demna Gvasalia. But at countless events the world over, the men and women, famous and non famous, of all ages, shapes who were fortunate enough to be able to buy into Giorgio Armani main label, almost always looked good, relaxed and confident. If you’re a designer, that’s not nothing.

Responding to the news of his death, Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH said: “I feel profoundly saddened by the passing of Giorgio Armani. He created a unique style, combining light and shadow, that he developed into a large and successful entrepreneurial journey and extended Italian elegance to a global scale. He was also a true friend and admirer of France. I wish to express my sincerest sympathy to his family.”

I came to admire him more and more. Clearly I wasn’t alone. Without Armani, there would be no The Row (the adored label launched by The Olsen twins in 2005), no Toteme, no Cos and no real concept of “stealth wealth”. He coalesced disparate notions about “good taste” and refined nonchalance into an easy to follow menu. What a gift to an increasingly casualised 20th and 21st century in search of a sartorial blueprint.

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