Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani has died at the age of 91, the Armani Group announced on Thursday.
The designer is credited over his decades of practice with embodying a quintessentially Italian aesthetic in his clothes, as well as taking Hollywood’s red carpets and power dressing to new heights.
“Il Signor Armani, as he was always respectfully and admiringly called by employees and collaborators, passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loved ones,” the Armani Group said in a statement, describing the founder as “a tireless driving force.”
“In this company, we have always felt like part of a family,” read a statement provided by the brand on behalf of his family and employees. “Today, with deep emotion, we feel the void left by the one who founded and nurtured this family with vision, passion, and dedication. But it is precisely in his spirit that we, the employees and the family members who have always worked alongside Mr. Armani, commit to protecting what he built and to carrying his company forward in his memory, with respect, responsibility, and love.”
This June, Armani was not present to take his usual bow at the brand’s show during Milan’s Men’s Fashion Week, the first time in his career he had missed his own runway event. At the time. The company said in a statement he was “currently recovering at home” from an unspecifed health condition.
Last month, the Italian designer was featured in a cover story by the Financial Times’ supplement HTSI, where he discussed his continued dedication to the fashion industry, and his company.
“I don’t know if I’d use the word workaholic, but hard work is certainly essential to success,” he said. “My only regret in life was spending too many hours working and not enough time with friends and family.”
Born in 1934, in the northern Italian town of Piacenza, Armani didn’t show a professional interest in fashion until 1957. He first studied medicine and then did a stint in the military, he later got a job as a window dresser at the historic La Rinascente department store in Milan — a move that would begin his lifelong association with Italy’s fashion capital.
When he was 30, dsigner Nino Cerruti took a chance on Armani, who was by then a buyer at La Rinascente, by giving him a job designing menswear. That was when he first learned about unstructured jackets, suit jackets without the traditional lining and stiff padding to accentuate the wearer’s body, which later became his trademark.
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