The style world gathers to say goodbye to Giorgio Armani in Milan

It was meant to mark 50 years because the founding of Giorgio Armani, the eponymous trend line that will turn out to be an empire. The stage was set for a career-spanning exhibition on the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan’s storied arts establishment, which might see trend enter its hallowed halls for the primary time in historical past, taking its place amid the masterpieces of Raphael, Caravaggio and Tintoretto – a symbolic gesture of Mr Armani’s distinctive place in Italian tradition. He’s, in spite of everything, trend’s ‘maestro’ – an everlasting arbiter of class, whose 5 many years in enterprise have seen him outline Italian model and promote it to the world.

At 7pm this night, friends gathered on the Pinacoteca di Brera for an altogether completely different sort of homage – earlier this month, it was introduced that Mr Armani had died, aged 91. The setting was prescient: the Brera neighbourhood is the center of the Armani enterprise; only a few streets away from the gallery is Palazzo Orsini on Through Borgonuovo, the long-time headquarters of the Armani group and the designer’s private residence. Tonight, well-wishers lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the present’s visitor listing, which included Richard Gere (Mr Armani designed the clothes for his star-making 1980 film American Gigolo), Cate Blanchett and Lauren Hutton, in addition to the style designers Dries Van Noten, Sir Paul Smith and Dean and Dan Caten of Dsquared2.

‘Milano, per Amore’: inside Giorgio Armani’s last runway present

For the event, the gallery’s cloistered courtyard was lit by a whole lot of lantern-style lamps, whereas a pearlescent runway ran across the size of the house. Simply earlier than 8pm, the present started: offered to a reside piano accompaniment, it was an ode to the 2 locations most essential to Mr Armani – Milan and Pantelleria, the volcanic island off the coast of Sicily the place the designer historically spent his summers. ‘All the things seems fluid, mild, as if able to yield to the island’s winds,’ learn the accompanying assortment notes, with silhouettes capturing the louche glamour and sinuous line which outlined Mr Armani’s collections. Colors ranged from pure hues of gray and beige to vivid blues evocative of island waters. The closing appears to be like featured shimmering crystal adornment – one other Armani hallmark.

The present completed with Agnes Zogla, one among Mr Armani’s longtime muses, strolling the size of the runway in a robe that featured the designer’s portrait rendered in crystal (the identical portrait appeared on a white T-shirt delivered to friends because the present’s invitation). After a rousing ovation, friends filtered up the stairway and into the gallery itself, the place they received a non-public view of ‘Giorgio Armani: Milano, per Amore’, which sees items from the final 50 years – for each women and men – displayed within the establishment’s everlasting galleries. Meticulously curated by Mr Armani earlier than his loss of life, the items had been chosen to interaction with the artworks on show within the varied rooms, together with Giovanni Bellini’s masterpiece, ‘St Mark Preaching in Alexandria’.

‘Giorgio Armani represents one of many highest pinnacles of Italian creativity, expressed within the essentiality and rigour of type, a rigour that developed from aesthetic to within the sense that it permeated his way of life and dealing,’ stated Angelo Crespi, director of the Pinacoteca di Brera. ‘On this, Giorgio Armani embodies the character of Milan most totally. He’s additionally probably the most emblematic expression of the tradition of Brera… [this exhibition] highlights his extraordinary expertise and inimitable model.’