“In this company, we have always felt like part of a family. Today, with deep emotion, we feel the void left by the one who founded and nurtured this family with vision, passion, and dedication,” his family and employees said in a statement released Thursday. “But it is precisely in his spirit that we, the employees and the family members who have always worked alongside Mr. Armani, commit to protecting what he built and to carrying his company forward in his memory, with respect, responsibility, and love.”
For more than 50 years, Armani has been one of Hollywood’s most popular designers, dressing A-listers for red carpets and being sought out by costume designers for film and television.
On the red carpet, he dressed the likes of Julia Roberts, Cate Blanchett, Lady Gaga, Leonardo DiCaprio, Eric Clapton, Steven Yeun, Angela Bassett, Allison Williams, Amy Adams, Jessica Chastain, Jodie Foster, Margot Robbie and Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett, Sofia Loren and more. (Variety)
Armani didn't just change fashion, but the way it was communicated: with his sister Rosanna, he invented EA Magazine, the first brand magazine with editorial content; he was the first luxury brand to use billboards around cities, like the wall on Via Broletto in Brera, which he occupied since 1984.
When he did so, people called him crazy, because at the time, the ones investing in billboards were appliance brands and (sometimes) films: it's still there for almost fifty years, and has become a symbol of the city. And then there's the Emporio Armani hangar at Linate, with the enormous sign that has greeted those arriving and departing from the airport since 1996, and where in September 2018 the designer showed his Emporio men's and women's lines: the airport was almost blocked, flights diverted, a surprise performance by Robbie Williams, and thousands of guests in the stands along the runway.
