Giorgio Armani has died in Milan at the age of ninety-one. The Armani Group confirmed that Il Signor Armani, as employees addressed him, passed peacefully surrounded by his family. He remained active in his company until the end, shaping collections and projects with the same realism that built a fashion empire across five decades.
Armani altered not only how people dressed but how they moved. In the 1980s, his soft-shouldered jackets migrated from the Milan runway into global offices, giving bankers and lawyers the latitude to lean back rather than stand stiff.
His tailoring found its way onto movie screens with films, such as American Gigolo or The Untouchables, where actors adopted its ease as a kind of method: less performance, more presence. The Armani look replaced rigidity with composure and turned understatement into a social currency of power.
That reach came through an unusually consistent instinct. Armani streamlined clothes and spaces alike, carrying the same sense of restraint into hotels, restaurants, and even opera houses. He saw glamour less as spectacle than as fine tuning: every surface adjusted to project control.
For Milan, Armani became both a civic patron and its most persuasive image-maker, exporting a version of Italian life that combined seriousness with allure.
A funeral chamber will open this weekend at the Armani/Teatro on Via Bergognone. The funeral itself will remain private, in accordance with his wishes. What remains is a company still owned by his family, a city indebted to his clarity, and a global dress code written in his hand.
Explore Giorgio Armani’s collections.
