Giorgio Armani—the maestro, the designer who cross-pollinated masculine and feminine style, the man who changed the way the world wears clothes—is gone, having departed this earthly plane on September 4, at 91. What he left behind, though, will blow your mind.
Before he passed—in preparation for the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of his legendary brand and, perhaps, in a race against time—Mr. Armani founded Armani/ Archivio, a massive Armani physical archive that has been digitized, curated, and opened to the public online, allowing visitors to browse through over 200 Armani collections spanning 50 years and over 30,000 individual pieces.
For Mr. Armani, a renowned perfectionist, no idea was too big and no detail too small. Armani/ Archivio is both an unprecedented undertaking and a priceless resource for students, historians, vintage dealers, collectors, and all lovers of great clothes. Enter the site, and do anything from browsing complete runway looks on a mannequin to digging deep into the brand’s studio photography, replete with key details and corresponding campaign imagery. It is a lush and immersive Armani experience. (Truly: Would we expect anything less?)
Above and beyond creating the site itself, Mr. Armani also hand-selected 18 archival looks, which are now on display at the Giorgio Armani flagships in New York and Los Angeles—and they are all available to purchase.
The 18 looks range from 1987 to 2016, with a special focus on evening wear. It’s all classic Armani, with the glamour quotient cranked all the way up to high, underscoring Mr. Armani’s decades-long love affair with Hollywood. Before celebrity stylists became the intermediaries between A-list actors and the brands that vie to dress them, those actors largely chose Armani for both public and private life, with pieces that reflected their own taste, personality, and mystique rather than a stylist’s calculated vision. Actors—Jodie Foster, Sophia Loren, Michelle Pfieffer, Julia Roberts, and Cate Blanchett, to name but a few—went to Armani for his sleek, glistening gowns, which projected understated luxury and personal confidence. Each appearance felt distinct and authentic, embodying the star’s individuality as much as the Armani aesthetic.
The archival evening dresses on display at the Los Angeles Giorgio Armani flagship feature a palette of beige and champagne pink, as if colored by the sepia-tinted celluloid fantasies of Mr. Armani’s youth. The fact that none of the looks are easily dated by sight alone speaks to another affinity that Mr. Armani shared with the allure of cinema itself: timelessness. Not only do the gowns showcase the designer’s close connection to LA; they also represent his journey from maverick sportswear designer to world-class couturier. As Mr. Armani’s profile grew and his design vocabulary expanded, his use of métiers d’art including embroidery and beading became increasingly more sophisticated, his Poiret-inspired escapist fantasies were tempered by realism and restraint, and his gowns became like contained canvases that wore like a second skin, or a cloud of air. Blending elements of ethnic motifs and textiles from around the world, he layered color, texture, thread, and embellishment to create an effect that was wholly contemporary and new.
The pieces on display at the New York flagship, meanwhile, are an homage to the city’s love for the color black. With their defined structure and bold geometry, they also echo its Art Deco architecture—a pillar of Armani’s visual universe and language—with the pièce de résistance a tuxedo and blouse from the Giorgio Armani Fall-Winter 1992 collection. Mr. Armani famously adapted his deconstructed blazer for women, dressing them with both a pragmatism and sense of swagger previously enjoyed by men, with his women’s tuxedo a recurring theme throughout many of his collections, a kind of counterpoint to Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking. Still, this one in particular exemplifies how Armani took familiar and iconic pieces, stripped them down to their most essential elements (black and white, a pant, shirt, and jacket), and rewrote them entirely in his own script. The tuxedo—in black satin and accordion pleated throughout—is instantly recognizable, yet altogether new. And while it is unmistakably Armani, it wouldn’t be out of place beside Louise Trotter’s debut collection for Bottega Veneta or Matthieu Blazy’s new Chanel.
Giorgio Armani passed just after becoming one of only a handful of designers in the entire history of fashion to have continuously led a house for half a century (the others are Ralph Lauren, Rei Kawakubo, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and Jeanne Lanvin). He is a titan, a true legend of fashion history, and Armani/ Archivio is the culmination of his incredible career and design legacy. The archival looks Mr. Armani personally selected for his flagship stores in New York and Los Angeles, meanwhile, offer nothing less than a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a piece of that history for yourself.