Giorgio Armani is a leading Italian brand in the fashion field. It produces and distributes clothes, accessories, eyewear, watches, jewelery, cosmetics, perfumes, and furnitures. It includes all brands founded by the celebrity stylist and entrepreneur Giorgio Armani. Armani was born in 1934 in Piacenza where he studied medicine and carried out the military service. After working as a buyer for the Renaissance department store in Milan, he hitted the road in 1964, when Nino Cerruti asked him to draw a male line for Hitman. Several years later, having succed as a freelance stylist, in 1975 he built up the Giorgio Armani brand, designed with the help of his business partner, Sergio Galeotti.
Armani's production ranges from dresses of all kinds, beginning with the blazers, with a fully-developed design: the inner supports (padding and counter tops) are eliminated, the buttons are displaced and the traditional proportions changed: so the destructured blazers became the absolute emblem of his style, protagonist of the men's and women's suits. The clothes worn by Richard Gere in American Gigolo (1980) were a milestone, as did the cover of Time in 1982. Inspired by black-and-white cinema, and the American atmospheres in the 20s and 30s, his style choose crisp, clean cuts and cool colors tones, but is his blue-Armani color, that distinguishes its production. Another source of great inspiration for Armani is Oriental and Arab culture. In fact, they appear in korean collars, and djellaba-like coats made available in the 1990s, the same time as the cinema released Il Thé nel deserto movie. Also Armani Casa collection is made with fantasies inspired by Art Déco and the Far East.
Today, the brand has six major fashion lines including Emporio Armani and Armani Jeans, one of Haute Couture Armani Privè, a perfumes line (including, Acqua di Gio and Black Code) and he diversified the production with beauty, furnishing, restaurans and even hotels.
Armani received countless awards, including the honorary doctorate of the RCA in 1991; since 2015, his works are placed in an exhibition space, the Armani Silos, totally dedicated to the designer's masterpieces.
