In the year since his death, there has been no hard pivot at Armani. The shadow of the founder has stayed in place over the Milan HQ, where the brand seems happy to leave it. Armani is not just plumbing the past for continued inspiration, it’s reselling it.
Today, Giorgio Armani is announcing Archivio, a grouping of 13 men’s and women’s looks, plucked from the brand’s back catalog and remade for today. (And, yes, at today’s prices.) There’s a jacket in pinstriped alpaca of 1979 vintage; a buttery one-and-half breasted jacket with a maitre d’s flair that first appeared in 1987; and an unstructured silk-linen suit that will activate ’90s flashbacks for die-hard Armani clients and those who want to capture that era’s nostalgia. The advertising campaign was shot and styled by Eli Russell Linnetz, who has his own label, ERL, but always seems to be the first call brands make when they want sultry photos with the aura of Details magazine circa 1995. (He did a similar thing for Guess recently.)
Linnetz’s images are a reminder of how Armani’s work still reverberates decades later.
Archivio is also a canny recognition of what shoppers crave now. On the resale market, Armani wares are as coveted as can be. Every week it seems as if I get an email from Ndwc0, a British vintage store, announcing a new drop of meaty-shouldered ’90s Armani power suits. They sell for less than $500. At Sorbara’s in Brooklyn, you can buy a tan Giorgio Armani vest for $225.
That vintage-mad audience is in Armani’s sights: To introduce the collection, it’s staging an installation, opening today, at Giorgio Armani’s Milan boutique. It will feature the hosts of “Throwing Fits,” a New York-based podcast whose hosts wear vintage Armani button-ups and shout out stores like Sorbara’s.
It’s prudent, if a bit disconnected. Part of the charm of old Armani is that it can be found on the cheap. I’m wearing a pair of vintage Giorgio Armani corduroys as I write this. I bought them for $76 on eBay. Archivio is reverent, but its prices, which range from $1,025 to $12,000, may scare off shoppers willing to do the searching themselves.
If you ask me, the next frontier of this archive fixation is that a brand — and a big one — will release a mountain of genuine vintage pieces. J. Crew and Banana Republic have tried this at a small scale, but a luxury house like Armani hasn’t gone there. Yet. Eventually, Armani (or a brand like it) is going to grab hold of the market that exists around its brand, but through which it gets no cut.
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Last Tuesday night I pulled out my tuxedo (it’s from the defunct Italian label Giorgio Correggiari and cost me, I believe, $250 at Ebreo, a vintage shop in Brooklyn) to attend a black tie premiere of Brunello Cucinelli’s new documentary. The doc stars (and was funded by) Cucinelli. You can tell. But Cucinelli sure can fill a room: I spotted TV showrunners (Shonda Rhimes, Darren Star), department store execs, actors (Oscar Isaac, Naomi Watts), magazine honchos and Martha. People like to turn out for the cashmere king. That probably says more about Cucinelli than any self-funded doc could.
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Rolex confirmed to me that the GMT-Master II “Pepsi,” arguably one of the most iconic watches of all time, worn by Tom Selleck, Daniel Craig and Ellen DeGeneres, has been discontinued. The company offered no explanation.
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Well, we’ll never know if the mayor is a Tom Ford guy or a Thom Browne guy. Zohran Mamdani will not be attending the Met Gala this year. Makes sense. When you’re pitching a new tax on the superrich, it’s probably best not to pal around with them.
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Speaking of Mamdani, he appeared in the Bronx this Saturday with Barack Obama. He wore a tie. Obama did not. Thus concludes this edition of the Political Tie Tracker.
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A24 is a fashion label now. The movie studio worked with New York’s cultiest kook designer, Emily Dawn Long, to make $150 tees to promote “The Drama.” Zendaya wore one over the weekend. The rest are sold out.
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Jesse McKinley has some deft analysis on why the men in Trump’s orbit are so obsessed with appearances.
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In my last newsletter, I mistakenly referred to the golfer Tommy Fleetwood as Mick Fleetwood in a caption. Thanks to all the readers who pointed out that the Fleetwood Mac co-founder would never have worn a sport polo. My bad!
Jacob Gallagher is a Times reporter covering fashion and style.
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