Timeless, elegant and Armani: the fashion brand challenging norms for over 50 years

By Alex Leisk

Giorgio Armani, the founder of Armani, died Sept. 4, 2025, at the age of 91. Armani transformed the fashion industry through the suit, utilizing deconstructed and softer designs in his approach to menswear. In his designs, he used lightweight and non-traditional fabrics, removed most of the padding and lining to give way to a relaxed and fluid design that moved with the body. This tailoring approach led to androgynous silhouettes that pushed the traditional boundaries of gender in the fashion world. On the flipside, Armani mirrored this with a hardened and intense image for womenswear, creating a brand built on androgynous aesthetics.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Armani’s founding. Shortly before his death, Armani founded Armani/ Archivio, a physical and digital archive of 200 Armani collections with over 30,000 individual pieces.

In a 2000 interview with Vanity Fair, Armani discussed every bit of his public and private life. At the time, the brand was faltering, with Giuseppe Brusone, the brand's managing director, having recently quit. Armani believed his empire was about to collapse. Armani, both the brand and the man, were relics of a previous generation, and their age began to show through the cracks of turmoil. Armani thus confessed,

        “When I show myself on the runway at the end of a fashion show — yes, I have a physique which is pleasing, young, but in a few years, I will feel less honest about it, because young people won’t put their trust in an old gentleman like me in five years… Fashion is made by young people, not old gentlemen.”



In the same interview, Armani described meeting his muse, co-founder, and lover Sergio Galeotti in 1966 at age 32. Young, sophisticated, and bound by their love for fashion, the two fell in love immediately. Together, in 1975 they founded Armani and built the company into a fashion empire, and created modern styles that continue to be referenced even today. Tragically, these two lovers were separated in 1985 by Galeotti's death from AIDS-related complications, a disease so consequential to the Gay Rights Movement.

        “Whatever I did at work was done for Sergio, and Sergio did everything for me, so that was the heart,” Armani said.

After his partner's death, Armani recalled people gossiping that he would leave the fashion industry, and his legacy would crumble. However, in 2000, at the time of the interview, his brand was worth more than $2 billion, with $850 million in annual sales.

In the 1980s, Armani famously tailored the “power suit” for women, which actress Julia Roberts iconically wore on the red carpet to the 1990 Golden Globes for “Steel Magnolias,” for which she won Best Supporting Actress. Roberts wore her baggy grey suit over a white button-up and a tie with a flower pattern of deep black, plum, and amber. She accessorized with bold black dress shoes, gold hoop earrings, and a curly hairstyle. Down the line, Roberts nodded back to the iconic ’90s Armani look, wearing a gray suit with a blue tie on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” while promoting her new film “After the Hunt.” 



Although Armani has passed, his designs, styles, and greater legacy still live on in the current fashion industry. Armani’s tailoring presents a standard for masculine excellence and style. Coming from a religious family and having attended private schools, I always associated these sophisticated styles with “Sunday’s best” and traditional views of gender. I now see how my understanding of elegance and luxury was unknowingly informed by LGBTQ+ designers.

Armani is a story of queer success. He pioneered a path forward against an industry built on the old-fashioned traditions of masculinity and femininity, enabling androgynous styles to come off the page and down the runway. ■