Hundreds of ordinary admirers and high-profile guests filed into Milan’s Armani Theater on Saturday to pay their last respects to Giorgio Armani, the Italian designer who died Thursday at 91.
Armani’s closed coffin was set beneath rows of paper-bag candles as piano music by composer Ludovico Einaudi played softly. Carabinieri in ceremonial dress flanked the casket, which was adorned with a bouquet of long-stem white roses. A marble sculpture bearing a crucifix, reported to have been brought from the designer’s bedside, stood nearby. Donatella Versace attended, leaving a bouquet in tribute and departing without speaking, while Milan’s mayor described Armani as a “man of extraordinary elegance.” The designer’s fashion house said he worked until the end and that one of his final projects was a runway show marking 50 years of the Giorgio Armani brand, slated to close Milan Fashion Week later this month.
Armani was widely credited with remaking the modern suit and popularizing a softer, deconstructed jacket that loosened the rigid lines of earlier decades. The look first entered popular culture with Richard Gere in the 1980 film American Gigolo and later became a staple of women’s wardrobes as Armani applied the same relaxed tailoring to women’s clothing. Mario Boselli, former president of the Italian fashion chamber, called him “the master of luxury ready-to-wear,” noting Armani’s pioneering role in shifting the industry’s emphasis from accessories to apparel.
The designer’s influence extended into Hollywood and major public moments. One widely cited example of his cultural reach is the champagne-and-silver suit Jodie Foster wore when she won the Academy Award for best actress in 1992 — an outfit that has been described as emblematic of Armani’s ability to fuse elegance with modernity and to dress stars for defining stages in their careers.
Beyond design, Armani built an extensive business that grew to encompass fragrance, cosmetics, hotels and other brand extensions, with revenues that industry reports have placed in the multi‑billion‑dollar range. He remained in control of his privately held company at a time when many Italian fashion houses became part of larger conglomerates, prizing independence and close oversight of creative and commercial decisions.
Born in Piacenza, northern Italy, in 1934, Armani’s early life was shaped by the disruption of World War II. He entered the fashion world after working in menswear retail and as a window dresser, later serving as a menswear buyer and designer before founding his own house. By the late 1970s and early 1980s his tailored, understated aesthetic had become synonymous with a new kind of modern Italian elegance.
Armani’s soft-shouldered jacket and pared-back palette helped redefine workplace attire for men and women alike, displacing the rigid silhouettes of previous decades and contributing to a broader social shift in how people dressed for professional life. Industry observers and contemporaries have noted that his clothes, rooted in fabric and tailoring, emphasized wearability and a discreet luxury that appealed to both celebrities and everyday customers.
Tributes poured in from the fashion community and beyond after the announcement of his death. Donatella Versace posted on social media that the world had lost “a giant,” and representatives of Armani said he was “indefatigable to the end,” driven by curiosity and an attention to people and the present. The fashion house emphasized that Armani continued to be engaged in collections and ongoing projects until his final days.
The memorial in the Armani Theater — the venue where Armani regularly presented his ready‑to‑wear collections — underscored the designer’s ties to Milan, the city that served as his creative and commercial base. Milan’s calendar will still mark a milestone for the label this month: a show commemorating five decades of the Giorgio Armani brand, a project the house said he helped shape.
As the fashion world reflects on his career, commentators have emphasized both his design innovations and his role as a business leader who maintained an unusually hands-on presence. Armani’s legacy will be measured by the enduring popularity of his ready-to-wear designs, the many actors and public figures he dressed for pivotal moments, and the global company that grew from his workshops in Milan into a diversified luxury brand. The house has said arrangements for further commemorations would be announced in due course.