Giorgio Armani distributed a press release which said his Privé collection was inspired by “the sky with all its nuances,” but is his couture show actually about that? With Marion Cotillard and Isabelle Huppert sitting center-front, in the middle of the movie-awards season, the focus is clearly on dressing stars. And so the guessing game began: What would serious women, or their stylists, choose to shop from this collection? To be honest, Armani never makes it easy to understand that from his runway show. There’s a disconnect between it and his uncontested and continuous red carpet results. The virtue of his work, and the trust he’s won in Hollywood over decades, is obviously that Privé is open to personal interpretation. Women wear Armani Privé, not the other way around. They emerge looking like themselves, rather than brand ambassadors.
So, the eye went to work on breaking down the options on view. It’s next to impossible to imagine the likes of Huppert and Cotillard leaping at any of the shorts or tiny bustier dresses, which rules out a lot in the collection. But there are still the Armani jackets to work with, soft trousers, and asymmetrical tunic tops. As for dresses: One or two lean, midi silhouettes could qualify for the dignified league. At the end, there was an interesting moment when a handful of women entered, with men in velvet suits walking two paces behind them. Given the state of gender power politics, was that a deliberate comment, or no?
