Giorgio Armani dressed all of us. Whether or not you ever had the money for a jacket with an Armani label, you wore a jacket that he invented. He was the mastermind of contemporary style, the architect of how we dress now. If you have worn an unstructured suit with a T-shirt to a wedding; if you have worn muted neutrals to work; if you have thought it might be chic to paint your living room grey: that was Armani.
Armani was working until his final days. Invitations had already been sent out for his next show, to be held on 28 September in the 14th-century courtyard of Milan’s Palazzo Brera. A spectacular party to accompany the show was planned as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the brand, which he founded in the summer of 1975.
