Giorgio Armani’s busy Sunday morning

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Sep 23, 2018

Leave it to Giorgio Armani to end the Milan fashion season with a polished and brilliant exhibition, and a classy fashion show.

 
No sooner had Armani taken his bow after presenting the Spring/Summer 2019 collection of his signature line, and posed for photos with Cate Blanchett and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, than the designer had strolled across the street for an opening in Armani/Silos, his museum and art center.
 
An exhibition of works by Sarah Moon, which has won huge critical acclaim for the noted photographer, who shot Giorgio Armani’s last two ad campaigns.

“It was a pleasure to work with Sarah on our shoots, which gave me the idea of this exhibition. But, like everyone else, it’s been a real revelation, such width of creativity!” marveled Armani as he toured the show space.
 
Stretching from Moon’s early career in the 70s right up to 2018, and incorporating some intense images of birds, ancient architecture and her never before seen dance photos inspired by Oskar Schlemmer, this is a remarkable exhibition. Helping to establish Armani Silos as a must-visit exhibition space.
 
Armani’s own fashion show was an ode to how light plays on the surfaces of fabrics and silhouettes. Made in multiple hues of lilac, pink, silvery grays and icy blue. Armani cut pantsuits with nipped-at-the waist tuxedos and lightly billowing pants, and finished them with giant fedoras, turbans and even a few miniature backpacks in lizard. For evening, he sent out lengthy gowns crossed with pleats and shimmering embroideries. Everything dazzled in this collection, entitled The Shape of Color. The silhouette was slender and elongated, creating a dreamlike effect; the mood was very elegant but never uptight.
 
The atmosphere was jaunty, heightened by the matching booties and electronica funk soundtrack of Low Alpha Waves by Echoel.
 
Armani took his ovation, sliding into a spotlight and then drifting back into his backstage, a beatific smile on his 84-year-old face. Before re-emerging for photos with his front-row and then leading a posse of fans, friends and family across the street to Armani/Silos. Once again, the hardest-working octogenarian on the peninsula.