Giorgio Armani, 1934-2025
There must be something special in the waters of the Adriatic, because no one creates quite like Italians too. They gave us the world’s most famous movie (The Godfather) and the world’s most famous fairytale (Pinocchio). They gave us the world’s favorite food (pizza) and the world’s most famous painting (the Mona Lisa). They gave us the world’s most famous poem (Dante’s Divine Comedy) and the world’s most famous artists (Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo). They even gave us the very name “America.” (Yes, it’s true — è vero! Look it up!) And, fittingly, they also gave us the world’s most famous fashion designer: Giorgio Armani, who died earlier this month at the age of 91.
Born on July 11, 1934, in the industrial town of Piacenza, Italy, Giorgio Armani grew up far from the glittering runways of Milan. His early years were shaped by a world recovering from war, and his first ambition wasn’t fashion but medicine. He enrolled at the University of Milan, studying to become a doctor, but the call of aesthetics proved stronger than the call of the stethoscope. After his schooling, Armani found himself in a Milan department store arranging window displays with the precision of a painter. It was there that he began to see clothing not just as fabric but as a canvas for ideas.