New York — With a strong four-decade track record, Giorgio Armani has earned the right to do just about anything he wants in the field of fashion.
If he wants to try his hand at writing about the Academy Awards instead of sketching gowns for the red carpet, he can.
If he wants to abandon the sleek gowns and chic suits that made him a fashion legend in favor of Asian-floral silk pants, cropped mandarin jackets and coolie hats, he can.
If he wants to invite regular folks to see his runway fashion show instead of only boldface names, he can.
And he did.
In fact, on a recent -- and rare -- trip to the United States from his Milan home base, he did all of the above.
The designer explains that the time has come to tweak the successful Armani formula, even if it's to satisfy only his own creative cravings.
"In the past, I already had created some special collections that were seen as not so 'Armani,' but the specialized press was a bit superficial and they did not forgive me for those differences. They press only wanted to think of the typical suit or the working woman and that was it, and that kind of clipped my wings," he says. "But now that I have more experience and I realize that in order to be gratified one has to do things that one loves and, therefore, one must not be so preoccupied with criticism. You must run risks to bring yourself to people's attention."
Before critics could do it for him, Armani dubbed his chinoiserie-inspired spring 2005 collection "Shocking" when he previewed it for fashion insiders in Italy, and then he took the show on the road.
Fashion designer Giorgio Armani, left, suggests hair styles for one of his male models before the presentation of Armani's spring 2005 collection. The show was Oct. 27 at Pier 54 in New York. It was the first time in several years Armani has shown his clothing in a New York show.
He took out an ad inviting readers to call and request tickets for the catwalk presentation at Pier 94 in New York City.
Famous fans were welcome, too: Actresses Glenn Close and Kim Cattrall, director Martin Scorsese and singer John Mayer were among the 2,000 people who watched the show. Ricky Martin was a model, strutting his stuff on the runway.
"I wanted to let the regular people come in. ... They tell me only in New York could one do something like this and mix so many different kinds of people," Armani says. "But they tell me that it's not so often in New York that you get such a warm welcome and see such great enthusiasm because they say that New York is a difficult audience and it's not so easy to get people to give you applause as I had."
Armani's blitz of New York, a city in which he has a home and an office, marked his first "public visit" to the Big Apple in more than three years. He says he's putting an emphasis on the American market now because the country's interest in fashion has returned to the height of the late 1990s.
On this trip, Armani also picked up the Fashion Group International's annual "superstar award" and had a book-signing event at Bergdorf Goodman, where he autographed copies of "Oscar Night: 75 Years of Hollywood Parties" (Knopf) by Vanity Fair editors Graydon Carter and David Friend. Armani penned the foreword that appears in a special-edition version of the book.
"Images of the stars arriving on that fabled red carpet have fascinated me since my youth. Indeed, photographs taken on that incomparable night continue to influence styles and trends of every era," he writes.
Armani began designing clothes for film in 1980 when he dressed Richard Gere in "American Gigolo." Other wardrobing credits include "The Untouchables," "Father of the Bride," "Shaft," and, most recently, "De-Lovely," starring Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd as Cole and Linda Porter.
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