Has a gray Armani pantsuit ever before been worn with a cropped T-shirt with a smiley emoji on it? Doubtful, but there’s always a first time for everything, and that was the way Giorgio Armani chose to open his Spring Emporio show, maybe to emote a little casualness. He got rid of his runway, too, and instead had his models walk on an illuminated path, as if at street level (that is, as street level as you can get when you’re showing inside the vast Tadao Ando theater you’ve installed inside your own lofty building).
In a funny way, this is a favorable fashion moment for Armani again—things have generally turned relaxed and casual, and he is once more a flat-shoe man in a flat-shoe time (exactly what Armani endured during the long reign of mega-platforms may only be imagined). So now he can get back to his natural state, putting models in low, pointy ankle boots and a variety of casual-formal, sporty-pretty shorts, jackets, and tops for spring.
Gone are the days when Armani shows were essays in a million shades of greige. (There was a time for greige, let’s remember: It was the color of armor an entire generation of pioneering American power women wore to go into executive battle from the late ’70s through the early ’90s.) This time, he added a powdery bois de rose—pink by any other name—in a variety of techniques that hinted at flowers, be that brocaded floral tailoring, or a soft hybrid of blouse and jacket, laser-cut into overlapping petals.
