"I don't think I have to retreat from my ideas and my way of thinking, I don't want to go back one step" says Giorgio Armani at the end of the show with which
Emporio Armani celebrates its first 40 years on the catwalk
in Milan
.
A celebration accompanied by a video projected at the beginning of the show, by an exhibition at the Armani Silos, by the appearance on the catwalk of the historical collaborators Silvana Armani and Leo Dell'Orco, directors of the women's and men's style offices of the Emporio, from a special episode of the magazine that bears the name of the line, and also some reflections.
Look at the photos
The Emporio Armani fashion show, party for 40 years - Lifestyle
"They have been 40 hard years, very hard but also beautiful, beautiful, despite 40 years of strange fantasies, even absurd proposals, to see such simple, clean and nice guys - reflects Armani - I was very pleased, I hold on for that, because I think my way of thinking then finds a remarkable response ". And if in 4 decades Emporio still finds the way to reach young people and stay new there is a reason: "there are thermal treatments and facelifts" Armani jokes, then explaining that "you renew yourself by looking around and not doing what you do. is proposed ".
Follow your own path, clearly, as it did in 1981, when the Emporium was born. "I drew an eagle on the phone and Sergio (Galeotti, ed) asked me 'can we find a Lacoste too?' and I said, 'What time up?'. 'The eagle' he replied and then we made the eagle. " A symbol known all over the world and born in Milan, a city so closely linked to the name Armani that "since I did the mural in Broletto - he says - taxi drivers have been asking passengers 'I'll take it to Armani?'". The exhibition
'The way we are'
talks about this and much more - equality between men and women, eroticism, travel
: "Emporio Armani was born in 1981 - ahead of its time
. I imagined it - says Armani - as a line with which to experiment, capturing new trends and proposing a democratic fashion, a container in which everyone can find something and make it their own, interpreting it in a personal way.
Today it represents the transversal and dynamic declination of my concept of style and
has not lost the initial spirit of individuality and aggregation, of research and freedom "
.
The spirit of Emporio pervades the exhibition, personally curated by Giorgio Armani, which will support Save the Children's projects aimed at combating early school leaving. Even fashion, Armani reflects, can educate: "I set out to become a teacher and in fact they call me" he jokes, and then explains that also thanks to a culture of clothing "you can recognize yourself and what you can be, in a one way or another, and I prefer another ".
Another that for next spring summer translates into a collection that has its center in
lightness, in the fluidity of the cuts and in the color
: "the optimism - explains Armani - lies in the fact that
those who wear these clothes feel more confident and cheered up
". They are colors that start from the tones of the desert to reach pastels and flare up in a final explosion of reds, greens, saturated blues, for
dresses with sequin fringes
for her and Bermuda-tunic suits in sparkling shantung for him. They are colors "a little off topic in the Armani panorama but it seemed necessary - says the designer - to give a shot of joy and these colors make me rejoice." As well as the large and colorful men's necklaces, the same as hers, in an
interchange continuous of male and female world
.
For her, thin dresses with marked waistlines, blousons and fluid trousers proposed as a new suit, blazers as light as shirts, patterns and lines that are echoes of travel.
He shares the same idea of soft elegance, made of shirt-jackets, wide tunics and pajama pants, tattoo-effect printed sweaters and tailored denim, but also shantung Bermuda shorts with silk blouses and leather slippers.
