During his life, Giorgio Armani took a post-show bow on approximately 180 occasions at the imposing Tadao Ando fashion theater he opened back in 2001. Mr. Armani, who died on Thursday aged 91, was this morning returned to that runway space for the very last time for his lying in state.
As a living force of fashion Mr. Armani had few peers, and arguably no equal. Today in Milan the power of his legacy—the sum of his lifetime’s achievements and actions, now the man himself is gone—began to manifest itself. To my eye, it looked like the start of “foreverness,” the quality Ralph Lauren had identified as that legacy in his tribute to the great Italian designer. As Giuseppe Sala, Milan’s mayor, said of Mr. Armani this morning: “It will be impossible to forget him.”
Sala was one of the first in line when the public viewing of Mr. Armani’s coffin began. Ten minutes before, the queue was already several people wide and ran at around 150 meters down Via Bergognone. More and more people arrived every minute.
At 9 am what is effectively three days of mourning for Mr. Armani in Milan was underway: we started to move. There were, in fact, two queues: members of the public wishing to pay their respects approached from one side, while hundreds of Armani employees were rightfully fast-tracked from the other.
Those queues converged at the door of the Armani/Teatro. We snaked up the corridor, which was flooded with sunshine. As corridor expanded into atrium, some well-wishers added to the already considerable landscape of floral tributes laid out to our left, while others wrote messages in the six black-bound books of remembrance laid open to our right. There were tears, many hugs, but no histrionics: just an overwhelming atmosphere of respect. And then it was time to go in.
It was undeniably strange, poignant, and powerful to be briefly in the presence of Mr. Armani—in the same space where we saw him show so many collections, take so many bows, and share so many opinions—for this very last time. The room was dotted with the evocative flickering lanterns that were his favorite evening decoration. The moving piano piece Nuvole Bianche by Ludovico Einaudi (Mr. Armani’s own choice, of course) played through the gloom.
Mr. Armani’s closed coffin was topped with a bouquet of white lilies and flanked by a quartet of Milanese carabinieri resplendent in ceremonial uniform, swords and all. Behind it was displayed the standard of Milan, a mark of honor. On a table alongside rested a large abstractly-carved hunk of crystal: a piece of sculpture that Mr. Armani had apparently kept by his bedside for many years. Each well-wisher was afforded a moment to approach the closed coffin, to touch it briefly, and to send a thought or prayer in Mr. Armani’s direction.
Alongside were chairs, there for Mr. Armani’s closest family and friends to sit vigil during his lying in state: this morning they included the designer’s nephew, Andrea Camarena, and Armani’s long-standing partner and menswear lead, Leo Dell’Orco. Other family members and friends will share the sad privilege to sit with Mr. Armani one last time today and tomorrow, before his private funeral on Monday.
As well as Mayor Sala, other visitors paying their respects to Mr. Armani on Saturday morning included veteran fashion entrepreneur Mario Boselli, Donatella Versace, Tommaso Sacchi, Carlo Capasa, John Elkann, Angela Missoni, Sara Maino, and Carla Sozzani. As she left the showspace, Missoni paused to say: “He was Giorgio: He was the first star, the first imprenditore [entrepreneur]. We shared a huge mutual respect and I think even affection. He was very human, and very sweet: he wrote to me when my mom died. And he was lucky in that he lived to the end, and that his mind and body was there. What can you wish for better?”
Yesterday and today the “necrologi,” or death notice, pages in Milan’s Corriere Della Sera newspaper have run to several pages of personal tributes to Armani. This old-school mark of respect has been observed by Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, Paola Fendi, Miuccia Prada and Patrizio and Lorenzo Bertelli, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the Vivienne Westwood company, Remo Ruffini, Stefano Pilati, Gildo Zegna, Luca Guadagnino, Ralph Lauren and his family, the Benetton family, and many scores of other individuals, families, and institutions.
Before his sudden decline and death last week, Mr. Armani’s next appointment at his Teatro had been booked for September 28. That is when he had been due to present a show celebrating the 50th anniversary of his company’s establishment back in July, 1975. It is understood that this show will go ahead, to honor the final collection Mr. Armani led the design of, and as a further celebration of his life and legacy: in a season full of designer debuts, this posthumous finale promises to be an especially powerful moment.
Giorgio Armani is already deeply ingrained into the fabric of Milan. There is the Armani/Silos museum, the Armani hotel, the always Armani billboards of Brera, and the Emporio Armani sign that every plane landing at Linate has taxied past since 1996. Milan, without doubt, will find it impossible to forget him, and nor would it wish to. In the Armani/Teatro today, projected up on the wall alongside an image of Mr. Armani on the runway in his pomp, was a quote from the man himself. “The mark I hope to leave is one of commitment, respect, and care for people and for reality. It is from this that everything begins.”
