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Fashion: Giorgio Armani took over uptown Manhattan on Thursday with a star-packed show on Park Avenue; a party featuring a concert by Chaka Kan and the most impossible ‘insider’ of insider after-parties.
A catwalk show staged inside the Park Avenue Armory, where Orlando Bloom, Liev Schreiber, Pamela Anderson, and Cooper Koch of the current hit Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erick Menendez Story, posed for photos.
The expansive space was done up in semi-circles, where 650 guests sat expectantly as the lights darkened and out rolled the first looks. The show boasted Giorgio’s spring/summer 2025 collection, traditionally shown in Milan but this season uprooted to New York.
Respecting his specific non-color codes in a co-ed show, Giorgio’s key colors for women were mud, sand, faded roses, and soft orange. For men, cement, lead, and a marvelous pale dawn grey. Indeed, he had his strongest looks in men’s, matter of fact. A generation of young design students should take a hard look at this collection for his floaty sense of volume, remarkable series of pajama pants and dhotis, and overall willowy beauty.
Women’s was decidedly more hit or miss. In reality, there has been a whole trend of summer bloomers on European runways. And Armani sent out a dozen or so, sometimes with an overly girlish appeal, though oft with great charm when teamed with short jackets and safari jackets.
But for the evening he did hit a succession of home runs with some beautiful crystalline sherbet tunics teamed with cigarette pants, or blouses with bloomers and incredibly delicate peasant dresses showered in mini crystals.
It was seen on a serpentine labyrinth of catwalks, where the cast stood at attention as only Armani bowed in the corner of the vast space. Even the presence of some PETA protestors was not able to faze this sensitive moment: the defining designer of the past half-century received an avalanche of applause.
And the day before, Giorgio had unveiled a brand-new, four hundred million-dollar complex named Armani Residences on Madison Avenue. His house taking over the neighborhood’s two swankiest hotels – The Carlyle and The Mark – with stars, VIPs, clients and editors.
Giorgio’s Thursday had begun with a personal appearance at his boutique in Bergdorf Goodman, where he signed copies of his book Per Amore. Outside, 10 windows of the world’s most luxurious department store are customized with looks from Armani Men’s and Women’s Collections. An elegant celebration of his historic ties with Bergdorf, the first store to carry the Giorgio Armani Men’s Collection way back in the 1980s.
It ended with the best post-Covid fashion after-party, where Too Many DJs put on an inspired set in Bemelmans, New York’s classiest bar, as Leonardo Di Caprio and Tobey Maguire held court.
All told, a remarkable two days by the Italian maestro who celebrated his 90th birthday this summer. Good reason why we caught up with the designer who never sleeps in the City Which Never Sleeps.
