Word: armanis
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Italian superstar, this year even more than last, is undeniably Giorgio Armani, 46. A master tailor who was probably the most influential men's wear designer in the '70s, he is being hailed in his sixth year of designing for women as Cardin and Courreges were in the '60s. (And being well rewarded: his sales worldwide last year totaled $120 million.) The Armani imprint is detectable in many of his competitors' designs. Says Carla Fendi, of the Roman family of designers: "He has created a unique style, one that you can recognize without a label...
Long before he started designing clothes for women, Armani was known for his superb tailoring and loving way with materials. For both men and women, he reintroduced linen, for example -and made the inevitable crumpled look acceptable. He ripped the linings out of his jackets for women to create an unstructured look, and made them hang almost as loosely as an afterthought...
With his new collection, Armani introduces fancy-free outfits for work and play. There is hardly a skirt in the show. The emphasis is on pants: quilted, pleated, tucked and cuffed bermudas, knee-length culottes with upward-curving hems, knickers and quilted pantskirts. They are worn in daytime with silk or satin blouses, strictly tailored jackets, capes and large T-shaped wool ponchos. Many of Armani's favorite colors-shades of beige, brown, rust, taupe, gray, black, traces of cobalt blue-are subtly combined in a single ensemble. Favorite materials for pants and jackets are houndstooth checks, herringbone tweeds...
After a visit to Japan last year and exposure to Kurosawa's film Kagemusha, Armani has given a new look to his more exotic clothes: smocked leather samurai jackets, ballooning silk pants, kimono-inspired collars, obi sashes and details taken from ceremonial robes. "It's true I was influenced by Japan," says Armani. "But the real inspiration is born when you examine what you did last season and try to sharpen your focus, softening a line that was too rigid, changing a color that was too hard." As a former fabric designer, Armani starts every collection by putting...
...Armani's decision to design for women in 1975 was influenced in part by visitors to his original men's wear store: women shopping not for their men but for themselves. "When I made the first jacket for a woman, copied from the man's," he recalls, "they told me, 'It's too hard, too masculine. Women won't accept it.' They were wrong. Women understood right away that a man's jacket on a woman makes her personality stand out." Most of his jackets today are softly rounded-and very feminine...