The life and legacy of the LGBTQ+ trailblazer

Giorgio Armani, a well-known gay Italian fashion designer, passed away at the age of 91.

The news was announced by Armani on Thursday (September 4th). According to the 2024 South China Morning Post, the fashion icon was the richest LGBTQ+ business mogul in the world.

He is known for his meticulous attention to detail and for leading the business that now takes over roughly 2.3 billion euros ($2.7 billion) a year.

Armani was born in Piacenza, northern Italy in 1934. He once said that his family wasn’t growing very well, but his parents’ “inner grace” influenced his creations.

After taking the drugs first, he joined the military before completing his degree. But it didn’t take long after he changed his truck and moved to fashion. Guardian Armani reports that he has become fashion due to “accidents,” but says, “it absorbs me completely and steals my life.”

Armani then worked at La Linacente, a department store in Milan in the 1960s before getting a job as a men’s wear designer at Nino Celti.

When I turned 41 in 1975, I finally launched what became the Armani brand we know. He did this with his partner, architect Sergio Galeotti. He persuaded Armani to sell his Volkswagen beetles and provide the necessary funds, as reported by the Guardian.

In 2024, over the years to keep his personal life private, Giorgio Armani opened up about his romantic relationship, Corriere Della Sera About his romance with Galeotti. The two continued to work together, with Armani managing the creative side of the business, and Galeotti managed the numbers until Galeotti died of AIDS in 1985, but was reported as a heart attack at the time.

After this, Giorgio Armani became a soldier alone, both creative and businessman.

After giving his first presentation in 1975, Armani became known for his fluid approach to tailoring and fashion, both for men and women. Over his career, he became synonymous with a classic, immature and timeless sense of style.

In his profile, which will be one of Armani’s final interviews, Alexander Fury is Financial Times The designer said, “put women in uniforms in radical suits just like Chanel, creating strong and confident clothing that will help promote the social revolution of working women in the 1980s.

There’s also a lot to do about how Armani changed the game when it comes to the relationship between designers and celebrities. After its debut in 1975, the Armani brand invaded the mainstream and offered costumes in the 1980s American Gigolo Starring Richard Gere. He will be dressed on the red carpet by Diane Keaton, Jodie Foster and perhaps most notably Julia Roberts.

The actress took part in the 1990 Golden Globes in an oversized grey suit with a white shirt and tie. The exterior was iconic. “I thought this outfit was very extra,” she later said. Trendy. She said, “I couldn’t know this would be like the outfit in a statement. I looked good and I still had that suit.”

The impact of that moment was evident at the Academy Awards a few months later. There, many famous people, such as Tom Cruise, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Denzel Washington, wore Armani.

Under the management of Armani, the company’s sole shareholder, the brand has expanded beyond fashion to hotels, chocolates, and home-based goods. Armani personally oversaw all the details and corrected the model’s hair moments before walking down the runway.

“My biggest weakness is that I control everything,” Armani recently told FT. He had a tough level of control even if he failed to attend the brand’s last few fashion shows.

“I remotely overseen every aspect of the show via video links, from fitting to sequences to makeup,” he said. In the same interview, the designer showed some regret in his commitment to his work. “My only regret in my life was spending too much time and not having enough time with friends and family,” he said.

Armani also worked on the idea of ​​succession in his business, explaining his hopes of a “gradual transition” to people like Leo Delcoco, the member of his family and the head of male design. In 2022, Armani said Fashion business He wanted to be remembered as a “honest man.”