Armani, Giorgio

Armani, Giorgio (1934- ), Italian fashion designer, hailed as a master tailor and as a designer whose clothes combine elegance, quality, and practicality. He was born in Piacenza, Italy. Armani abandoned his medical studies and studied photography before becoming a window dresser at a Milan department store. He worked there in the menswear department, then spent ten years (1961-1971) with Nino Cerutti, a leading men's fashion house. After Armani left Cerutti, he founded his own firm; clothes designed by him first appeared under the Armani label in 1975.

The Armani line was notable for informal, loosely fashioned blazers and rumpled silhouettes. Although designed for men, his fashions were so popular with women that Armani began to design for them as well. In 1980 he introduced Armani USA, featuring lower-priced, mass-produced copies of his custom-made clothes. That same year, he designed costumes for Richard Gere in the film American Gigolo, as well as uniforms for the Italian air force. He also began to design his own fabrics. In 1982 he introduced his perfume, Armani. In 1981 he became one of the few designers of men's clothes to win the Neiman-Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion; in 2000 Forbes magazine wrote that he was the world's most successful fashion designer. Also in 2000 the Guggenheim Museum staged a retrospective of his work.

The 1990s saw Armani further expand his business beyond clothing with the launch of three major fragrances: Gio’, Acqua di Gio’, and Emporio Armani, as well as creating fashion lines in golfing and skiwear and developing Emporio Armani Orologi (watches).