Giorgio Armani -- Front Row Over Fashion
By Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber-FWD
Milan, Oct 2, 2002/ FWD/ --- Maybe we should dispense with the clothes and stick to the
celebrities.
With the fashion increasingly redundant at many collections in New York and Europe it was
instructive to attend Monday's Giorgio Armani collection in Milan, where the focus was
dominated by a phalanx of stars and the clothes played a secondary role.
The show itself began an hour late as editors and buyers waited patiently for a slew of
celebrities to occupy the two front rows in Armani's custom-built show arena in southern Milan.
Tina Turner arrived in a fireball of paparazzi lights, followed by actors George Clooney
and Olivier Martinez.
And there were almost more actresses in the front row than models on the catwalk: Kristin
Scott Thomas, Kate Bosworth, Milla Jovovich, Kim Cattrall and Mira Sorvino, Sophia Loren,
Joely Richardson, Anna Friel and Rosamund Pike. Phew!
As it happened, the collection turned out to one of the least distinguished this great
designer has presented in some time.
It wasn't that there weren't some lovely clothes, just that there were too many unlikely
looks and, one felt, passages, which Armani at his peak would never have countenanced.
The show opened slickly with a series of slim, new crepe looks based around an elongated
hacking jacket and pencil pants.
Armani also sent out some attractive perforated glove leather jackets with curled trim
and some excellent silk columns in a café crème shade.
But the longer the show went on, and this collection did ramble, the less focused it became.
A foursome of orange and red evening gowns really didn't work, nor did gowns in colorful
windbreaker hues that seemed way out of place in an Armani show.
Doubly surprising from probably the greatest tailor in the last few decades was the cut of
many long dresses, as side slits ran from the hem to well below the knee forcing models to
hobble up on to the runway and several times stumble in their exits.
A number of looks did earn brief bursts of clapping, especially a screen goddess silver
look that shimmied delightfully.
But applause, which normally ripples through an Armani show, was rare Monday.
Besides the screen heroes, several sportsmen showed up, including the world's fastest swimmer.
But instead of giving a championship performance, the emperor of Italian fashion ended up
reminding them of Tiger Woods at this weekend's Ryder Cup - in short, a world champ well
off the peak of his game.
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