Giorgio Armani: Looking back at a life in fashion
As the 91-year-old Italian designer passes away, we look back at his incredible influence on the fashion world
Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani passed away at the age of 91 on 4 September 2025. Announced in a statement released by his eponymous fashion house, the designer died at home in Milan surrounded by his family, leaving behind an enormous legacy and abundant archive that has shaped the way women dress for the past five decades.
“Today, with deep emotion, we feel the void left by the one who founded and nurtured this family with vision, passion, and dedication, but it is precisely in his spirit that we, the employees and the family members who have always worked alongside Mr. Armani, commit to protecting what he built and to carrying his company forward in his memory, with respect, responsibility, and love,” read the statement released by the Armani Group.
Having missed his menswear show for the first time ever in June 2025 due to ill health, Armani’s death comes at an auspicious time for the brand, which was planning a major event during September’s Milan Fashion Week to mark the company’s 50th anniversary.
Felicity Jones in Armani at the 2025 Oscars. Image: Alamy
A look from the Armani Privé Spring 2025 collection
Born in Piacenza, Italy, in 1934, Armani trained in medicine and served in the army before pivoting to becoming a window dresser for a Milan department store. His design career began at Cerruti 1881 before he founded his eponymous house in Milan in 1975. Debuting both mens and womenswear collections for SS76, Armani would remain the house’s creative director right up until his death, growing it into a business worth €5.9 billion and with lines covering ready-to-wear, couture, jewellery, accessories, beauty, homeware, ski, sport and childrenswear, as well as Armani branded hotels, resorts, clubs and restaurants.
A savvy marketer from day one, prominent Armani branding in 1980’s American Gigolo, starring Richard Gere, proved to be a pivotal moment for the brand. Armani created a series of suits specifically for Gere’s character, who at one point opens a draw filled solely with Armani shirts, bringing the designer’s signature brand of unstructured tailoring, which earned him the moniker ‘King of the Blazer’, to a mass audience. International sales soared and celebrities clamoured to wear his clothes on the red carpet. Armani would go on to design costumes for more than 100 films, including 1987’s The Untouchables, 1990’s Goodfellas, and 2013’s Elysium.
Unsurprisingly, Armani is also credited with innovating the modern relationship between fashion and Hollywood, enlisting a series of muses to regularly wear his clothing on the red carpet. In 1978, Diane Keaton became the first actress to wear Armani to the Oscars, while Julia Roberts and Jodie Foster have long turned to the brand for some of the film industry’s most high profile occasions.
Armani with Beyonce at the Spring 2007 Armani Privé show. Image: S Bukley/Shutterstock
Armani with Julia roberts at the 2008 Met Gala. Image: Everett Colelction/Shutterstock
A pioneer in both fashion and business, Armani was also responsible for a number of industry firsts. In 2007 he became the first fashion designer to ban the use of models with a BMI below 18 following the death of Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston from anorexia. The same year Armani became the first fashion house to live broadcast a couture runway show, streaming the Armani Privé SS07 show on MSN and via Cingular phones – something which has now become practically mandatory for fashion brands looking to showcase their highest form of craftsmanship to the world.
“Giorgio Armani was one of the great architects of modern fashion,” says Harrods buying director, Simon Longland, of the designer’s legacy. “With the deconstruction of men’s tailoring and the effortless refinement he brought to womenswear, he liberated the way an entire generation dressed, introducing a new elegance that continues to define contemporary style.
“He was a visionary not only in design but also in business: the path he forged – from diversifying into womenswear and accessories to building a lifestyle empire under his own name – became a model that others have since followed. Above all, Giorgio Armani will be remembered for the purity, beauty and craftsmanship of his collections, and for the profound, lasting influence he had on the way the world dresses.”
In 2024, Armani was also named the richest queer person in the world by the South China Morning Post, with a net worth of $12.4 billion. However, after the untimely death of his long-term life and business partner Sergio Galeotti in 1995, Armani kept his private life out of the spotlight, never entering into another public relationship.
Remaining the sole shareholder of his eponymous brand until his death, which is today the third largest Italian fashion group behind Gucci and Prada, while Armani leaves behind no heirs, he is succeeded by nieces, Roberta and Silvana Armani, and nephew, Andrea Cameron, who all currently hold leadership roles at the company. Silvana, alongside Leo Dell'Orco, is expected to take the creative reins, with the pair having previously headed menswear and womenswear respectively for the Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani and Armani Exchange lines.
To mark his passing, the Armani Group has announced its website will be going offline for a day while Armani's body will lay in state at Milan's Armani/Teatro on 6 and 7 September for mourners who wish to pay their respects, with a private funeral to take place at a later date.
Following the announcement, fans and fashion luminaries have paid tribute to the designer. Posting on Instagram, Donatella Versace wrote, “The world lost a giant today. He made history and will be remembered forever”, while Valentino Garavani decribed Armani as “a friend, never a rival… I can only bow to his immense talent.”
Long-time muse Julia Roberts said Armani was “A true friend. A legend” while Victoria Beckham added, "The fashion world has lost a true legend in Giorgio Armani – a visionary designer whose legacy will live on forever. I feel honoured to have called him a friend” and Cate Blanchett said he left "a void imposible to fill".
