Giorgio Armani

Giorgio Armani has been working in the fashion business for five decades, and has now become a legend in his own lifetime. Considered by many to be the “Father of Italian Fashion,” the Armani brand has grown over the years to become a huge global concern. He was born in Piacenza, Northern Italy in 1934, and it wasn’t until the mid sixties that he really took off in the fashion world. Prior to then he had studied for a medical career, going to Bologna University, and then did military service, working in a military hospital, after which he finally decided that being a doctor wasn’t for him after all! He then worked in a Milanese Department store, and it was there that he got his first on the job training as it were, getting familiar with the everyday world of fashion retail and the marketing skills needed in the Fashion business. In 1964 he got his first big break, being hired by Nino Cerruti to design the menswear line, Hitman. For well into the seventies he continued working for Cerruti, but also did freelance work doing designs for many manufacturers. Then in the late Sixties, he teamed up with architectural draftsman, Sergio Galeotti. This was the beginning of a long and fruitful professional collaboration. It was Galeotti who persuaded Armani to open a brand new design office in Milan. Which he did where he continued many successful collaborative projects, and continuing to operate as a freelance designer for several Fashion Houses, such as Tendresse, Sicons, Montedoro, Allegri, Bagutta, Hilton and Gibò. However, it wasn’t until 1975 that the Giorgio Armani label was officially launched. His style became synonymous with high class taste and something of a badge of office for the upwardly mobile. His key signature fashion being the unstructured jacket for men and women which was all the rage from the mid seventies and throughout the eighties. Elegance and High Style were his standard and motif, and shown off to great acclaim by such Hollywood film stars as Richard Gere in in the 1980 hit movie “American Gigolo.” This success led to a long-term collaboration with the film world. Armani has now designed costumes for more than one hundred films!