Remembering Giorgio Armani: the Italian Designer who Reshaped Fashion

Master of the suit, Giorgio Armani, passed away on September 4th, 2025, at age 91 in his home in Milan. The revolutionary Italian fashion designer will be remembered as one of the most influential pioneers of the fashion industry, and as defining the “power” in a power suit.

Images via Archivio Armani , MSN . New York Times , and Vogue and Vogue France

Armani intended to become a doctor, but he left medical school early to pursue a career in fashion. Later, in 1957, Armani first worked as a buyer and salesperson for the Milan Department Store, La Rinascente. After seven years in that position, he began to pursue his career in fashion design. In 1975, with the help of his dear friend Sergio Galeotti, Armani launched his own Ready-to-Wear collection for men and women, founding his empire, Giorgio Armani.

“Armani is one of those, like Coco Chanel with the little black dress, as important for what he contributed socially through dress as for what he specifically designed,” said Harold Koda, former head curator of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in “Giorgio Armani, Fashion’s Master of the Power Suit, Dies at 91”.

Armani’s designs played with the boundaries of gender expression and redefined power dressing. Popular among male executives and movie stars, an Armani Suit was one of the most desired clothing items at this time. Women in high professional fields adored Armani’s prim skirt suits. An Armani suit was the default uniform on Wall Street corner offices, and dominated the early mornings and late afternoons of Manhattan. It symbolized authority and reshaped the concept of professionalism in both men's and women’s fashion.

Thanks to the film American Gigolo, Armani quickly became Hollywood's favorite designer. Released in 1980, American Gigolo played a significant role in shaping the future of suits, largely due to its collaboration with the renowned Giorgio Armani. American Gigolo follows a male escort in Los Angeles, later becoming entangled in a murder investigation. Protagonist Julian Kay, starring Richard Gere, Gere’s “eye-candy” performance became the blueprint for dressing for the “female gaze.” The American Gigolo Armani suit immediately became the defining suit of the 1980s.

Giorgio Armani remains one of the most renowned and fundamentally revolutionary designers of the 20th century. His impact on other designers is profound.

Here are just a few: 

“I have always had the deepest respect and admiration for Giorgio Armani, not only as a designer who never strayed from his vision, but as a man who loved his family and friends, and his homeland in such a special way. Though he was an icon of the world of fashion, he lived with great humility and a love of living that inspired the way he worked and the way he lived. He created a world reflecting all the things he loved with a foreverness that will be his legacy.” Ralph Lauren, The Associated Press.

“Giorgio Armani had such a clear force of personality and vision that you knew his work instantly, wherever you found it. He understood power and attitude and elegance as well as anyone ever has in fashion, and he understood women too: how they wanted to dress and what message they wanted to send as they asserted themselves through his rise in the ’70s, ’80s, and beyond. He also never confined himself to one field or one discipline, and understood that fashion can’t exist in a silo. For him fashion wasn’t one thing: It was also film, music, sport, art, design, and architecture, and he left his mark in all these worlds—and everywhere he went.” The CCO for Condé Nast, The Associated Press.

“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.” Victoria Beckham, the renowned fashion designer and former Spice Girl, on Instagram.

Giorgio Armani’s legacy will forever continue to shape the fashion industry, as other designers will lead the future of a powerful suit and understand the inherited relationship between gender roles and fashion. Armani’s impact will be seen and felt in every corner of the fashion industry for decades and centuries to come.