Fashion As Art

Fashion As Art

One of the most celebrated and influential Fashion designers Italy has ever born. His fashion house being reported to be the most financially successful that Italy has produced. His remarkable haute couture designs are known throughout the world for their timeless sophistication and elegance.

His first fashion headline was made in the mid 1970’s when he reinvented the jacket, by removing the lining, slope of the buttons and shoulders so that the garment was softer, sensuous and more comfortable.

Famous for turning ordinary looking people into sensual style icons, his clientele list goes on for miles, with starlets such as Michelle Pfeiffer, Jodie Foster and Julia Roberts among the many.

And although his garments are rather understated, and do not grab the front headlines through shocking sensational designs, none-the-less his label is highly successful. So what is it that makes Armani a triumph in the Fashion world?

Born in 1934, Piacenza, a small town near Milan in Italy. From a young age Armani attended a public school and developed a love for the theatre and cinema. During the war these later proved to be significant to his work. Commencing his love of the theatre he took inspiration from films in the 40’s that were made in America and admittedly said: “The 30’s and 40’s has always influenced me. There was an elegant simplicity-clean white blouse, a simple skirt, a duster (coat), a slim lame evening dress. By the 50’s, fashion was getting too extreme.” Armani 1991

His ideas were also partly influenced and created from styles worn by stars like Hepburn, Bacall, and Bogart, to everyday people that he saw in the street.

Armani did not originally set out to become a fashion designer. He said: “I wanted to become a country doctor and save lived…like a hero in a Hollywood film.” His studies at the University of Bologna (from 1952) were interrupted by the Military service in 1953-54, including working in a military hospital, which fuelled his enthusiasm for his medical studies.

It was in 1954 that he took a job first as an assistant window dresser and then moved on to become an assistant fashion buyer. He then worked for Nino Cerutti’s company where he worked for several years as a designer. This was probably the turning point in his life which developed his understanding of tailoring garments and giving him valuable practical experience which educated him on the value of fabrics in Italian Fashion.

Soon after the war Armani met architecture student Sergio Galeotti who quickly became an intimate friend. The two got on so well that Armani launched his first ever label collection with Galeotti which paved the way for his career.

At the age of 40, Armani successfully presented his first show under his name and made huge profit of around £60,000 pounds, his garments proving to be more than popular.

With the shrewd help of his friend, Armani’s company expanded so rapidly that it quickly became one of the most outstanding business successes of the 1980’s, with the best known Italian label.

Armani’s designs were mainly tailored towards softening men’s clothing and fortifying women’s. He created men’s jackets without stiff and harsh lines, as for women his designs held a slightly masculine air, taking away the curvaceous lines of the female form. In effect balancing the image of what men and women should look like in society, so that they were not at extremes, but in harmony with each other.

As Eric Clapton said in 1992: “Versace is all about sex and rock and roll-very raunchy. Armani is about harmony, harmony in tone and colour and fabric – harmony in atmosphere”

In 1981 the Emporio Armani collection was created for a younger more trendy market, his £95 pound designer jeans, £250 pound beaded tops and £450 pound suits were quickly popular and became the backbone of the thriving Armani Empire.

Everything was not to continue up hill for Armani though. Sadly in the mid 1980’s Armani’s close friend, Galeotti, died, leaving Armani to take over the business as well manage his busy lifestyle as a designer. It was a harsh awakening for the designer who had never dealt with the business side of fashion before.

“Sergio protected me from everything. The outside world was like a foreign country to me…then he died…I had to defend myself from lawyers, deal with the press, and get to know the people who worked for me.”

Armani did this to the point where he became the director of the company and his control absolute over every facet of his empire.

His company is situated in Milan in a seventeenth century palazzo on the Via Borognuovo. His main apartment is on two floors at the centre of the palazzo, and its no surprise to learn that it is decorated in grey, white, beige and black. It becomes apparent that these colours play a large role in Armani’s designer lifestyle. His mother was a vital influence on Armani and it’s not difficult to see where his love of these plain colours comes from, for his mother favoured the colours black, cream, white, taupe and grey.

Armani’s designs seem to border on indulgence at the same time as abstinence, reflecting perhaps the ethics in society at the time. It certain that he does not agree with certain designers saying they are turning fashion into “a porno show”. Saying this however, in 1994 Armani’s spring/summer collection showed a first-time level of femininity, with many of his designs including bustiers and high heels. The designer explained this as a reflection of the change in society, expressing his belief that women didn’t need to “dress like a man to be taken seriously” anymore.

He has travelled all over the world to places such as Asia and China. Which have had a hand in stylising his designs, the use of foreign influences is not difficult to miss when viewing the heavy silk fabrics laden with glittering sequins.

Using these foreign influences he has successfully blended them together with current fashion trends to create a distinctive different look from anything else on the catwalk.

Finally, for all to see, a collection of Armani’s finest has been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in front of Burlington Gardens in London. The gallery, acquired by the Royal Academy in January 2001, has been brought to life by this current exhibition organised by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York and due to travel on to Rome, Tokyo and Los Angeles. It is sponsored by Mercedes-Benz. The exhibition called “Armani: A Retrospective” offers a unique look back through Armani’s contributions to the fashion world over the last 25 years.

This accomplished collection boasts over 400 garments, including those worn by Richard Gere in the film American Gigolo in 1988 and a suit worn by Arnold schwarzenegger from his earlier filming days. There are also sketches of his rough designs as well as video footage.

There is an obvious androgynous feel to the costumes, which looking back into Armani’s past can be seen to be influenced by Marlene Dietrich a 1930’s movie actress.

With shafts of blue/gold light intertwined with silken threads you are led through a series of dark rooms categorised by theme through out Armani’s career. The designer of the exhibition Robert Wilson got his idea for the layout from a scene from his theatre work ‘The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin’ where “there were golden rays of threads spanning the set from the top right to the bottom of the stage.”

Walking up the stairs a series of catwalk clips are being shown just below the first floor balcony. Moving along down a long dark corridor there are glass displays with glittering sequined dresses. There are a whole glorious selection of rooms were the neutral theme continues with a sequence of silvery grey suits and a subsequent room of beige outfits.

There is also another room that combines both Armani’s belief in minimalist styling and his love of Eastern influences acquired from Indonesia and Polynesia. Like all of Armani’s clothes, these were made with thick decorated material that despite its appearance was made to hang and cling lightly to the frame. These are based on local peasant costume as much as that of wealthy sheiks and maharajahs. Part of the charm is seeing all the costume’s in luxurious fabrics that you wouldn’t normally see anywhere else.

One of the star outfits was the sequined fish-scale dress from the 2003 spring/summer collection with an intriguing scarab beetle clasp. It was a slinky little number that just begged to be touched. Though unfortunetly for the public, no touching was allowed.

Next door was a stark contrast, devoted entirely to an elegant array of minimalist black and white tuxedo dresses.

On a more colourful note there was a room dedicated entirely to an assortment of lush red evening dresses. Off the shoulder, strapless and full bodied with sequin detail and beautiful soft lines, this room held dresses any women would kill for.

These articles of clothing are beautiful and the epitome of style, with an obvious amount of thought put into the making of them. Which is why it is not surprising that they would be exhibited in a gallery for all to see, because they are fine works. And which is why they still continue to remain so popular with the cream of Hollywood.

So what is it that makes Armani’s designs such a success? Is it the uniqueness, the motivation behind the creation that goes beyond the aesthetics? The answer to that could be seen in the reason as to why Armani’s clothes successfully exhibited at an Arts museum or why they were chosen to be exhibited in an Arts museum in the first place.

It could be said that Armani’s designs surpass the usual requirement of fashion and move onto another subject altogether, that of Art. Like a painter or a writer, his imagination is a wonderful tool that he wields to create a magnificent master piece out of fabric. This is the ongoing debate as to whether Fashion can be classified as Art. This perhaps is part of Armani’s success, in that his designs can be seen as something beyond fashion and so in that respect they are unique.

To make up your own mind of course and join the debate, you will just have to go and see the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and visit Armani: A Retrospective.

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