"I've always thought of the T-shirt as the Alpha and Omega of the Fashion alphabet" - Giorgio Armani
"Jeans represent Democracy in Fashion" - Giorgio Armani.
Birth
Giorgio Armani is a Italian fashion legend born on July 11, 1934 in Piacenza. His father was Ugo Armani and mother Maria Raimondi. While studying in secondary school, Armani aspired to a career in Medicine. He took admission in Department of Medicine at the University of Milan.
Success Road
While studying medicine, he was called to serve in army. As he was studying medicine, he was sent to serve the injured soldiers in Verona. While serving in army, he thought that this was not what he wanted and decide to take a different career path.
After completing his military service in 1957, he worked as a window dresser at La Rinascente, a departmental store in Milan. There he learned all about Fashion designing and marketing. He started freelancing and contributed his designs to many fashion houses in Milan.
In 1960's , he moved to Nino Cerruti company to design menswear. while working for Cerruti, his popularity grew and he continued freelancing designs for more manufacturers. In Mid-1960's, Armani met Sergio Galeotti, an architectural draftsman. Their friendship grew stronger for the next coming years. In 1973, Galeotti pursuaded Armani to launch a design office in Corso Venezia, Milan. This resulted in more companies collaborating with Armani. After gaining such great experience in designing, Armani decided to open his own Label.
On July 24, 1975 he founded Giorgio Armani S.p.A in Milan along with his friend Sergio Galeotti. Armani not only produced apparel for men but also for women. By the end of 1999, Armani owned 2,000 stores worldwide and his annual sales were roughly around $2 billion. While his designs were popular in Europe, he was not connected to American fashion loving customers until 1980. In 1980, his clothes were worn by actor Richard Gere in the film American Gigolo, which helped for publicity of Armani in America. He also designed clothes for the TV series Miami Vice (1984-89), starring Don Johnson. Soon, many Hollywood stars started wearing Armani on red carpet. During 1980's, Armani became a symbol of success among business professionals.
Armani described his approach towards Fashion as " I was the first to soften the image of men and harden the image of women. I dressed men in women's fabric and stole from men what women wanted and needed-the power suit." As of 2019 Arrmani has a net worth of over $8 billion.
