Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/577402
Armani/Silos, Giorgio Armani's new permanent exhibition space in Milan, is full of slim, beautiful women. Many are professional models, and all are dressed in revealing haute fashions: a semitransparent, f lesh-colored jumpsuit with a plunging backline; a crystal-studded, tight-bodiced, full-skirted black tulle cocktail dress…. The occasion is a party, in late April, honoring the Italian designer and what may be his biggest year to date: the 40th anniversary of his eponymous fashion house, the grand opening of Armani/Silos, and a new collec- tion whose name could denote Armani's aesthetic inf luence in the fashion world today: the New Normal. At a certain point, a phalanx of dark-suited men enters the party. Embedded deep within his imposing entourage, Leonardo DiCaprio strides through with a serious expression. His beard and long hair, gathered in a knot at his nape, make the actor stand out among both the other male guests, who adhere to a near-militaristic aesthetic rigor, and the sirens dressed to the nines. The meticulously directed celebration welcomed other A-list devotees of Armani: Tom Cruise, Glenn Close, and Cate Blanchett were all in attendance, much of their night spent posing for throngs of photographers packed behind metal barriers. Other longtime enthusiasts of both the man and the brand, among them Sophia Loren, Tina Turner, and Lauren Hutton, also attended a catwalk roundup of Armani's 10 -year foray into haute couture, featuring more than 90 looks and 11 themes. A party the night before at Armani's members-only Milan club, Privé, was deejayed by Boy George. But while the festivities were meant as a celebration, they also held a retrospective spirit, honoring Armani's indelible inf luence on haute couture over the past four decades. The designer has described his role in fashion as a "scenographer, director, interpreter, and costume designer of contemporary reality." As a child he dreamed of becoming a film director. Appropriately, his long, close ties to the entertainment industry, first forged by dressing R ichard Gere in the 1980 film American Gigolo, have become a major channel of cultural inf luence. "All the events that positively affected my career took place at the same time, without being calculated or planned. I met American Gigolo director Paul Schrader quite by accident," Armani told Vegas in an exclusive interview. "A fun fact is that the clothes worn by R ichard Gere in the film were not designed specifically for him—they were from a collection. You could find them in boutiques once the film was released." "American Gigolo had Richard Gere as its star, but Armani's clothes were the real unsung protagonist," says Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technolog y in New York City. "There are scenes of Gere just luxuriating in fabulous clothes, simply pulling clothes out of the closet and laying them out, [scenes] that don't advance the plot." It's a testament to the sex appeal the designer imbued not only into his menswear but menswear in general. "Starting with the wardrobe of [Gere's] character, Julian Kay," says Steele, "Armani showed audiences a dignified alternative to antiestablishment fashion excesses such as f lared pants, winglike lapels, and high- waisted polyester suits. [He showed] escape, too, from the stiff tailoring of traditional suits typical of Savile Row. Instead, A rmani's desig ns doled out sexy, easy elegance in less st ructured garments that f lowed over the body in a sensual, f lattering way." "[Armani] not only relaxed the suit; he made it a sexier garment," agrees Harold Koda, curator-in-charge of AS far as the eye can see, For Harold Koda, the word that sums up Giorgio Armani's early work is "sprezzatura"— a term that comes from Baldassare Castiglione's 1528 Renaissance tome The Book of the Courtier, meaning "a certain nonchalance," the ability to " display an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions, making it appear almost without any thought." opposite page: Giorgio Armani as photographed by Robert Krieger in the 1980s. above, from top: The second-floor Color Schemes gallery in the Armani/Silos exhibition space; a velvet tunic from Armani's Fall 2011 collection printed with the designer's likeness, in the space's entrance gallery.