Fashion icon Giorgio Armani, born in Piacenza, Italy on July 11, 1934, died in Milan according to a statement from the Armani Group.
He burst onto the scene in 1975 and by the early 1980s his designs became the go-to choice for the corporate business world and Hollywood A-Listers. Fashion aficionados regard Armani as the father of modern Italian style, who built a fashion empire based on luxurious tailoring combined with painstaking attention to detail.
Armani continued to act as chairman, CEO and creative designer right up to this year. The company was preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding with a fashion show and party later this month.
In June, a brief statement said that the designer would not attend either Milan’s Men’s Fashion Week or the September event, as he was “currently recovering at home” amid reports of failing health, and would instead be represented by Leo Dell’Orco, head of menswear design.
In 2024, Armani said he would continue to run his company for “another two or three years at most” and would concentrate on guiding his unnamed successors in the structure, projects, and protocol he had built. It was widely assumed that his niece, Silvana Armani, head of womenswear, and Dell’Orco would play major roles in the future.
The company’s statement released on Thursday said, “In this company, we have always felt like part of a family” before adding: “Today, with deep emotion, we feel the void left by the one who founded and nurtured this family with vision, passion, and dedication.”
It said that all of those who have worked alongside Armani are committed to “protecting what he built and to carrying his company forward in his memory, with respect, responsibility, and love.”
The statement said Armani would lie in a funeral chamber inside the Armani/Teatro in Milan until Sunday to allow the public to pay their respects in line with his own requests, after which there would be a private funeral.
Armani’s business empire produced everything from T-shirts, perfume, skin care, interior décor, business suits, jeans and evening gowns. According to the Italian fashion issues website “Women’s Wear Daily (WWD),” the Armani Group generated net revenues of €2.44 billion ($2.84 billion) with net cash and financial investments amounting to €1.03 billion ($1.2 billion) in 2023.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, writing on X, called Armani “an icon, a tireless worker, a symbol of the best of Italy,” and praised his “elegance, creativity, and enduring impact on global fashion [which] brought luster to Italian fashion and inspired the entire world.”
During his 2022 Milan Fall/Winter fashion show, Armani called for the usual music accompaniment to be switched off in a “sign of respect towards the people involved in the unfolding tragedy in Ukraine.” He was one of the first major figures in the fashion industry to vow solidarity with Ukraine – the resulting show was conducted in virtual silence, interrupted only by applause from the audience.