With the passing of Giorgio Armani, the world has lost one of the most influential designers of the 20th century. The Italian almost single-handedly redefined menswear in the 1980s with his unstructured suiting, which gave men a newfound freedom and comfort in ease. His new ideas would’ve found their audience regardless, but they exploded into the mainstream with the release of 1980’s American Gigolo, Paul Schrader’s neo-noir film starring Richard Gere and Lauren Hutton, which was released to huge success and has since gone on one of the most influential of the 20th century.
A decade later, as red carpet began to play a more important role in celebrities’ promotion tours, Mr. Armani became the undisputed king of the red carpet—especially when it came to awards show, where wearing a dress by Mr. Armani could become a kind of good luck charm. The actress Cate Blanchett knew this well. She often wore the designer glamorous gowns and won her Best Actress academy award for Blue Jasmine in 2014 while wearing a jewel-embellished number by the designer. A few years later she would go on to become an Armani Global Ambassador, with her beauty and intellect becoming synonymous with the brand.
In an interview with The Guardian, Mr. Armani once stated, “For me, it is only meaningful to work on red carpet events if I can build a relationship with the people I dress. If Jodie, Michelle, Julia, Sharon, Sean, Robert, Claudia, Sophia, Cate and Isabelle have remained faithful and regular customers to this day, it’s because our bond emerged spontaneously out of affinities of taste and character, and grew from there. I could never dress a man or a woman, famous or not, who I didn’t feel to be in tune with what I do.” Here, three icons—and friends—recall their friendship with the creative giant.
Giorgio Armani and Richard Gere (with then-wife Carey Lowell) at the opening of the Giorgio Armani exhibition at the Guggenheim, 2001.
KMazur
