Magnum Opus

Review/Fashion; Images of Man, Labeled Armani

21 DECEMBER 1990     NEW YORK TIMES     WOODY HOCHSWENDER

When one thinks of Giorgio Armani, many images come to mind; the actor Richard Gere rifling through an enormous closet of Armani suits and shirts in "American Gigolo," or the earnest double-breasted G-men in "The Untouchables."

... The institute show spans 15 years of the designer's career in men's wear, from the unconstructed jackets of the 1975 to the pile-driver shoulders of the 80's to the new soft sack suits of the 1990 -- a complete circle. The one-room exhibition of the 204 advertising photographs, taken by Aldo Fallai and Norman Watson, was underwritten by the Giorgio Armani Fashion Corporation. 

... Clearly, the exhibition is only partly about clothes. And so is Armani. The name is magic. To the extent that clothing performs surplus functions -- conferring status, seductiveness, authority -- the Armani name has great contemporary resonance. If clothing has magical functions, akin to the mystic powers of tribal vestments and jewelry, the Armani label is talismanic. What are you wearing? An Armani. Not a double-breasted suit with a strange weave of tan and gray, but an Armani. Like Polo, the name stands for quality and integrity of design. But also something else. 

... [The] Armani influence, is bound up with important currents in society. In the last half-century, as population shifted from the city to the suburbs, men found themselves with more leisure time and considerably wider contexts for dressing. Sport clothing of all kinds was required -- from the golf course to the tennis court to the mall -- and men have had to learn to cope with different degrees of casual. 

... As the Armani look developed, it also came to bridge the gap between the anti-Establishment 60's and the money-gathering 80's. It made the wearer seem simultaneously more at ease and more powerful. In the post-Vietnam era, an Armani suit, with its enhanced silhouette -- wide shoulders, shaped waist, elongated lapels -- was right for a new generation of men slipping back into the office routine after a decade of countercultural copping out. 

... Never mind that an Armani suit announced itself. Or that the cultural antecedents were suspect. The wide-shouldered double-breasted Armani suits recalled an earlier era, but in many cases it was the ill taste of one's grandparents that was being mimicked. Not Henry Cabot Lodge but Al Capone.But the Armani influence has been undeniable and enduring. In any large men's clothing department, imitators abound, most notably Hugo Boss, which retains the aggressive linebacker look even as Armani has moved on...  Read More

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