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Such a deceptively simple act. Such a revolution in style.
When the Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani ripped the lining out of a man's jacket — and took the bulky shoulder pads with it for good measure — he created a look and a movement in fashion to which almost every designer of business, street, evening and casual wear still owes an eternal debt.
The shoulders that slip elegantly down the arm, lengthening the impression of the body; the linen that reveals the beauty of its texture by being released from its binding. The unbuttoned jacket of fine merino wool revealing something as shockingly casual as a t-shirt beneath. The guys from Miami Vice knew the power of this.
That unorthodox, but brilliant juxtaposition of textures, of "high" and of "low" styles, became his hallmark, and for a young suburban girl like me his clothes became a touchstone of style. His definition of relaxed elegance, an unstructured sense of style, defined the 80s and 90s.
Giorgio Armani, the shy son of an office clerk for the local Fascist party in northern Italy, has died at the age of 91, after missing several of his last shows due to illness. He was the sole shareholder of his vast fashion empire of fashion brands, perfume, homewares, hotels and more, and one of the very few to refuse to sell to the rapacious fashion conglomerates.
I have loved this designer since I first encountered him as a teenager, when I saw Diane Keaton accept her Oscar for Annie Hall, in a louche but elegant Armani suit and realised, with a shiver, that women didn't have to be done up in lurex and spangles to look sexy and beautiful.
I remember first seeing one of his now-talismanic runway looks — a soft, cashmere sweater teamed with an extravagant evening skirt of silk or taffeta — and deciding for all time that this combination of casual and formal was the height of style. I still think it is. Push those knitted sleeves up and you've nailed the Armani look.
It's impossible to overstate the importance of the Armani suit for a woman, both the real thing and every label that followed in his path.
From Gianni Versace to Jil Sander to here in Australia, where Carla Zampatti once spoke to me about the influence of Armani's unstructured elegance on her work. If you couldn't afford Armani as a young woman, you bought Zampatti's beautiful wool crepe designs and felt the direct line of his influence.
Deborah Nadoolman Landis, the chair of the David C. Copley Center for Costume Design at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the New York Times that in the 60s, all the women of her generation were wearing jeans: "But where do you go from Woodstock? How do you professionalise that look when those women start entering the work force? You professionalise it by wearing a feminised suit from Armani."
A pair of long, elegantly cut shorts would inevitably appear in many of Armani's women's collections, sometimes culottes, sometimes even alluring bloomers, and while I imagine not many women were bold enough to try them, they made a point: you can dress comfortably and still be stylish. Armani had our back.
(I fell for it one year and bought a pair of Armani black silk taffeta bloomers, cut long and tapered to the knee. It might be time to steel myself and drag them out again.)
It's always been very clear to me who were the designers that really appreciated and cared for women, and those who I suspected didn't. It wasn't about their success: the French designer Christian Lacroix had a phenomenal career, despite what I always saw as a deep misogyny in designs that made women look foolish and absurd.
But the designers who put care into making women feel beautiful and effortless, who did not use women as reluctant frames for an exaggerated and sometimes nasty sense of femininity, were the ones I loved.
Armani was the greatest exponent of this. His later high couture designs under the label Armani Privé were essays in beauty, with one breathtakingly lovely piece after the other, sloping down the runway in easy forms of column dresses, long skirts and lush blouses, velvets and draped trousers and the kind of embellishment that would make the wearer feel, for once, that they lived in pure glamour.
He also had the ingenuity of a true designer. I've never known quite how he does it, but he is the creator of a black velvet of such astonishingly deep pigment, as seen on Australian actor Cate Blanchett this week in Venice, that it looks like it could trap and hold gravity and light. And there is little that makes a woman feel more elegant than a classic black velvet outfit.
Armani was regarded by some as too conservative, and repetitive with his limited palette of colours and styles. But as the notion of "quiet luxury" made a comeback in recent times, simple, well-cut designs by fashion favourites like The Row and Phoebe Philo can be seen as walking clearly in his path.
Armani always said that his philosophy was "to help women and men feel comfortable and confident through the clothes they wear." I think that's all I need to remember as I pull on that pair of glamorous shorts and walk like "Gio" has dressed me himself.
This weekend, apart from celebrating the dad in your life, you can read about beloved musician Ben Lee, and do read my chat with award-winning film composer John Powell.
Have a safe and happy weekend, and here's some new music from Vance Joy. This might work well as your weekend soundtrack. Go well. |
