Fifty of the worlds most beautiful models waited for Giorgio Armani.
Five hundred journalists and celebrities would soon throng in to see them model Armanis spring collection.
Accompanied by an interpreter, Armani strode onto the runway to deliver his credo on deportment.
Stepping forward with understated style—Cindy Crawford in a navy pantsuit by Giorgio Armani.
Armani waved his fingers, and Evangelista pulled it off.
Armani winced again: her hair was dyed just as red.
Daringly, laughing, Evangelista handed her wig to Armani, urging him to put it on.
The height of pared-down chic: Giorgio Armani silk jacket and skirt in pimento red. Suede sandals by Maud Frizon. Bag by Paloma Picasso.
The photographers never get to shoot the stick-on eagle tattoo on Armanis right forearm, either.
This will be very elegant, very simple, and very natural.
The makeup is not strong, the hair is not strangea glance at Evangelistaand the clothes are fantastic.
Time-out: Cindy Crawford in sporty separates from Emporio Armani. Cotton-and-linen sweater and cotton Bermuda shorts.
He struck an angular pose, his hands braced on his hips, elbows out.
He relaxed: white maned, composed, erect.
Did you notice the models hands?
Donald Sutherland asked me after the show, fluting his own hands aloft wonderingly.
Their hands were perfectly relaxed, yet full of energy.
Theres something about those clothes, and Armani himself, that conveys a self-assurance even to the models.
(Hes trying to achieve a dreamlike state, model Yasmeen Ghauri said later.
But it can be very boring for us.)
He captures the flow of the human body.
But Armani took greater pleasure from his shows immediate gratifications.
For Armani, at fifty-seven, this adoration was superfluous certification of his swift and forceful influence on fashion.
When he started Giorgio Armani S.p.
To complement his mainstay linesthe traditional Black Label and the trendier Emporio ArmaniArmani recently launched A/X: Armani Exchange.
Twenty-five U.S. outlets are scheduled to be open by this month.
Even the Godiva soap in the bathroom was a treat Armani had picked up in St.-Tropez.
Everything was just so.
Armani is about harmony, harmony in tone and color and fabricharmony in atmosphere.
Masked by his thin, watchful smile, he ensured that everyone had champagne, that nothing jarred.
I must tell you something grave, Armani would say to me later.
In fashion, everything has been done.
The only challenge now is new associations of the same elementsties, stretch pants, the jackets.
Its the way they mix.
She was there in Milan.
And she looked gauntly fabulous.
Everyone was trashed, falling all over the place in an interesting chaos.
And he sat there quietly, absolutely sober, observing us.
Clothes should transmit sensuality, not sexuality, Armani told me the morning after the show.
Yesterday I was really worried because I didnt want to display breasts underneath blouses or through transparent fabrics.
There was a slightinsinuationof breasts.
[In fact, I saw at least three full-fledged breasts.]
But I didnt want people to say, Breasts, breasts, beautiful breasts!
The height of pared-down chic: Giorgio Armani silk jacket and skirt in pimento red.
Suede sandals by Maud Frizon.
Bag by Paloma Picasso.
We sat in the living room of Armanis apartment, upstairs from his office.
A cat is discretion, Armani will say.
A dog is tenderness.
Im communicating simple and clean, Armani said.
Its almost like Im coming out of the shower, that Ive taken a big shower.
Clothes, really, are unimportant.
No matter, that is you also.
Indeed, Armanis jacket-based couture has seen at least three revolutions.
In the mid-eighties he abandoned the power suit for the looser, roomier sack suit.
His Black Label outfits still cost upwards of seventeen hundred dollars, but theylookless assertively expensive.
I have taken things I did ten years ago and corrected them for today, Armani continued.
And the shoulder is back, but softer.
The eighties shoulder was a womans manager.
Now she doesnt need to tell anybody what she is.
More than any European designer, Marshall Blonsky suggests, Armani is a wild, savage semiotician.
Through his clothes hes unconsciously educating the people who wear them in the ideology thats coming.
Life is a movie, Armani has said, and my clothes are the costumes.
While demonstrably untrue, this wish helps explain Armanis and Hollywoods mutual fascination.
Wearing Armani in Hollywood makes no statement, no, no, Donald Sutherland said in Milan.
It makes you look individual and terrific.
And everyone in Hollywood wants to look as individual and terrific as possible.
Without necessarilybeingindividual and terrific.
Michelle wears a gold lame suit with no makeup and a pair of black glasses.
Its the contrast that consecrates the image.
Armani is very clever, Eric Clapton mused in Milan.
In his quest for the perfect sotto voce understatement, Armani dreads vulgarity like death.
My atmosphere is everything, Armani said.
But because I have a line of thought doesnt make me a monk.
There should be frivolousness, but frivolousness in my style.
Last nights baby doll dresses would make you say, Oh, thats not Armani.
But within my context, it is Armani.
The contrast is important, otherwise you get an Armanicaricature.
Time-out: Cindy Crawford in sporty separates from Emporio Armani.
Cotton-and-linen sweater and cotton Bermuda shorts.
Armani contends against two familiar criticisms.
Whats that, for Chrissake?
.the drabbest clothing Ive ever seen.
Boston has been a tough sell for Armani.
Armanis clothing system is not monotonous, Forte said.
It iscoherent.And hes not a control freak.
Hes adetail person.He feels the weight of being.
I have a house in the country, in the Po Valley, near where I was born.
The old people were in shock, thinking, This new owner is weird.
Now, though, they polish everything, theyre fundamentally worse than I am.
Armani grew up a shy perfectionist in a lower-middle-class family in Piacenza, near Milan.
I think Giorgio was even a fussy baby, one friend said.
The middle of three children, he was the most frightened by the bombs of World War II.
The single defining event in Armanis life since then was Galeottis death after a lingering illness in 1985.
The company continued to expand and maintained its astonishing retail margins of 55 to 67 percent.
More important, Armani says, is that since then, I became a human being.
Because I understood that you die.
I woke up to reality.
My eyes are very expressive, but my body shape is all wrong, Armani said moodily.
It was the last of our conversations, and he had slowly lowered his guard.
I usually read people through their body movements, its my work, but my body just doesnt speak.
I would like to have the physique of Daniel Day-Lewis.
He doesnt have such a good body, but hes very sensuous.
Or Jeremy Irons, or Matthew Modine inBirdytheir bodies speak.
Could you rid yourself of this physical insecurity?
Yes, if I role-played.
But I dont want to do that.
I realize that people love me for my insecurities.
He thought some more, and his sad blue eyes glinted with humor.
Probably because I require them to.
Physically I love loving better than being loved.
I love loving someone elses body, feeling someone elses need.
Id rather caress someone else than be caressed.
And through your clothes you caress strangers all over the world?
Do you think they notice?
Only a man so gifted and forlorn would have such success cloaking the worlds needs, dressing its lacks.
It is possible and even pleasant to imagine a whole world designed by Armani.
All loneliness would be soothed, wrapped in the loose weaves of self-assurance.
