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Emporio Armani: The Emperor's Latest Clothes
By Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber-FWD
MILAN, Mar 3, 2003 /FWD/ --- There was a time when Giorgio Armani was the most influential designer on the planet. Not so much any more.
Increasingly the great designer reminds one of a master filmmaker or Renaissance painter who devotes the last decades of his life to embellishing the extensive canon of his work, in this case, to making more and more Armani.
The Emporio Armani collection showed Friday in Milan was certainly competent, and had plenty of commercial clothes, but it harked back to a more innocent era, the late '80s, to be precise.
Armani insisted in his program notes that his main obsessions for fall/winter 2003 are "legs, legs, and more legs," and there were several hundred yards of thigh on display on the catwalk of the designer's custom-built showroom space. The collection was certainly flirty, but it was never funky.
Armani remains the greatest tailor of his generation, and what worked best was the main theme of the collection - undulating, gathered and pleated mini-skirts worn with the Emporio signature white eagle logo. Paired with wee jackets, cut without lapels Beatles-style, or tops in floral prints, they were sexy and stylish. And Armani's long series of suede pirate boots with diagonal zips are sure best-sellers.
But, frankly, flared black velvet pants didn't look great with cottagers' shoes, and really should not have been seen with white paillette bow-tie bras that felt nearer to Vegas than Verona.
A group of coat dresses with handkerchief hems worn with the fall season's ubiquitous tights were rather brilliant, as were some sailor tops worn with leather pants finished with ankle buttons. And though Milan is unseasonably warm right now - hotels are turning on the air conditioning in February - Armani's catwalk was crowded with mohair sweaters. Milla Jovovich, the model/movie star who will appear in the next Emporio campaign with Justin Chambers, wore the best of these before the show.
Attired in a white mohair sweater with an open back and a nun's hood, Jovovich scurried over to quadruple kiss Italian Vogue editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani, just before taking her front-row seat. Then, at the show's end, she appeared in a pink satin cocktail dress, bowing with Armani before she - not the designer - took the final stroll up the catwalk.
Applause rang out for the designer, who bowed and smiled benignly like Rembrandt or Kurosawa at an opening, content not to invent that much, just to add luster to his own name. Then again, Kurosawa's nickname in Japan is Ran, which means Emperor, just like Armani in Milan.
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