The fact that Giorgio Armani is working to set his Privé collection head and shoulders above his ready-to-wear is increasingly apparent. In a literal sense, he built up the collars of his opening daywear with face-framing furls and finished the look with forward-tilted toques—he s a man who can t resist a hat when flying at couture altitude. From there, the stylistic mood hovered somewhere between the enveloping Poiret coat and the precise, peaked-shoulder jacket of old Hollywood silhouettes, cut in complex zigzag patterns and tiny pleats.
In a more pervasive sense, though, the distinguishing move forward in Armani s collection was his ever-richer deployment of materials and technique, like a sheared mink made light with organdy insets, or a fan-pleated python trench. For a designer in touch with the lifestyles of the superrich in Asia and other far-flung regions where he s extending his reach, that makes sense. Nevertheless, this line is at its best on the territory he s already defined for himself—the place in the spotlight marked out for the singular Armani evening dress. When he s concentrating on minimally framing a woman s presence with one of his pale, strapless, scrunch-pleated, and draped gowns, the attraction of this collection is self-evident.
