Giorgio Armani revives logo, wows with wizard show

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jun 18, 2018

Giorgio Armani took a languid, 30-second bow after presenting his latest signature menswear collection on Monday in Milan. As well he should seeing the excellence of the clothes he had just sent out.

 
Beaming, smiling and even giving thumbs ups, before the hand-written Giorgio Armani logo, from the house's '80s archives, illuminated onto a backdrop of massive white sheets.
 
A vintage logo for this collection, and a new attitude, where the key item in the wardrobe, the double-breasted jacket has rarely been produced, and cut, in such abundance and with such panache.

From clinker like putty cotton suits or flawlessly cut short rumpled linen versions; to snazzy windowpane cotton ideas for the more mature to magnificent light cement linen suits in exactly the same color as the Armani’s Tadao Ando designed headquarters.
 
All this jazzed up with some beautiful abstract Asian nature prints, used in flowing cargo pants, or a great quartet of shirt jackets.
 
“Double-breasted has always been in my wardrobe, but I wanted to give a new informality, a greater lightness of being. And I wanted young men to see that a double-breasted should take the place of a blouson or a jeans jacket today. Or worn with color to go out to dinner on a beachside terrace. Wearable and accessible for everyone. No?” said in Armani in Italian in his backstage.

 
His other big news – and a huge Milan story – was denim, seen in natty pajama pants nipped at the ankle.
 
“Denim used to be for impoverished wretches. Now it is for the sophisticated souls. Times change,” winked Giorgio.
 
Looking trim, though with a hoarse voice, but very much in charge. Most designers never go out on the night before a show, but Armani was in such a self-confident mood; he was the senior-most designer to attend the Sunday evening re-launch dinner of Uomo Vogue the night before his show.
 
“The logo was something that we had in one of our drawers for a while. And, I thought, it just looks right. So why not?” he concluded before being engulfed by his handsome cast, all requesting selfies with this ever graceful octogenarian.