Well, it looked like Armani. And come on, what else would the first Giorgio Armani men’s show without Mr. Armani look like? You don’t turn a cruise ship on a dime, even if there is a new captain at the wheel. And it’s not really a new captain. Leo Dell’Orco, who designed the collection, has been Mr. Armani’s right hand (in work and in life) since 1977.
And so all the Armani signatures were present on Monday morning inside the amphitheater beneath the late designer’s home on Via Borgonuovo: the band-collar blazers, buttoned at the throat so they fanned out like split curtains, the Arctic gray palette, the trousers in slight chevron patterns and the basket-weave knits. The runway styling gimmicks were all there, too. Carmen Sandiego fedoras that I can’t imagine anyone purchases outside a sample sale, circular wire-frame glasses and the they-came-two-by-two suited couples in the finale.
There was no doubt that Mr. Dell’Orco has the vocabulary to speak Armani. His peak-lapel suits and tan trenches were as fluid as ever. If you’ve been buying Armani’s rippling pajama-fit suits, your style is safe.
I did clock a minor shift: Some shoulders were extended, 1980s style. Likewise, the Deco ties, worn end-of-workday loose, and many zippered blousons landed like dusted off throwbacks. The shadow of Armani’s “American Gigolo” period is never far from its men’s wear. There are worse fates than that. All the more so because pieces from this era are coveted by younger, eBay-addicted fans.
What else jumped out? The cunning dress trousers with inverted pleats beneath the pockets. And those pockets were not cut at the side, as one would expect, but horizontally at the front, as if plucked from jeans. They begged for you to shove your hand into that pocket, push it forward to balloon the pleat and create even more kickiness to your trousers.
Yet, if anything, there was too much of Armani here. By the end, it felt as if Mr. Dell’Orco had designed a box-checking retrospective to reassure the market (and potential corporate buyers circling the brand for acquisition) that Armani could still do it all, offer it all, after Mr. Armani’s death.
“He had the final say,” Mr. Dell’Orco said in an interview published this week in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. “Until the very end, that’s how it was.”
The weight of following such a lofty figure was obvious as the collection veered into the less winning corners of Armani’s vast oeuvre. I could have done without the iridescent shirts. (Robert Graham is not a name you should be thinking of at an Armani show.) There was too much gloss overall. I’m not so sure I’d want my suit to look like a velveteen disco ball.
More than anything, I longed for more discernment. One hopes that with time Mr. Dell’Orco will feel confident enough to edit, — to know he needn’t adhere to every facet of the brand, all at once.
Jacob Gallagher is a Times reporter covering fashion and style.
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