The Architect of Timeless Elegance

Over the entirety of his career, Armani was famously unflinching in his commitment to his core aesthetic, even when the tides of trends and taste ebbed from his current. His atelier and circle of influence was tight, loyal, and highly guarded, including Leo Dell’Orco, head of menswear design, and his niece Silvana Armani, head of womenswear. Rather than enlisting an outside stylist from fashion’s preferred roster of star image-makers for his runway shows and campaigns, Armani did it all himself, for better or worse.

In the aughts and 2010s, critics complained that his collections were frozen in another time, with their predilection for funny hats and tricky pants. Even more confounding and fascinating to the press was, first, the issue of a potential corporate merger; for years, rumors spun about an acquisition by LMVH or Kering. It never happened. “I have no associates. I am not in the stock market. I am beholden to no one in what I do. If I spend billions on a fashion show, I spend billions. It’s not public,” Armani told Vanity Fair in 2000.

September 5, 2025 | 3:36 am