The invitation for this show came attached to a charm in the shape of an all-white Rubik’s Cube. In part it signaled a series of rearrangements in this apex Giorgio Armani line that seemed synced with greater adjustments at play across the Armani Group. It also prefigured the all-white, Saturday Night Fever–ish dance-floor set on which the models walked beneath a disco ball.
Grace Jones wore a strictly silhouetted black Giorgio Armani jacket on the cover of her 1981 album, Nightclubbing, as Armani’s US profile was accelerating. Today his niece Silvana Armani spent much of this collection exploring a similarly sleek, spare, and nocturnal aesthetic. This yielded tuxedo dresses in black liquid silks; evening dresses suspended from bustiers crafted in shiny resin strips in black or metallic finishes; and a cotton pullover whose wide, curved neckline was punctuated with flashing chrome studs.
This was, I reckon, the first Giorgio Armani collection to be held in his Via Bergognone fashion theater since the June 2024 menswear show. There have been many slight changes to the house ritual between then and now. Everyone seemed deeply relaxed that it began more than 30 minutes after its advertised time; Mr. Armani would have been flashing the house lights in agitated gusto after 10. The models came one by one, with none of his favored onrush of looks in a brace or cluster. The often unconvincing smiles he liked his models to wear were replaced by the more usual runway expression of detached serenity. The Silvana-imposed withdrawal of her uncle’s customary abundance of hats continued.
Mr. Armani was also very much present, as both memory and avatar. As Francesca Ragazzi heard from Silvana backstage preshow, the Agnese Zogla–modeled Look 21 re-created Armani’s First Communion suit. There was also a crystal-embellished jacket printed with a famous later portrait of the house founder—the same image reproduced on the awesome T-shirts available in the Armani/Silos gift shop across the road. Butterflies fluttered in and out of the collection as decorative motifs, embroidered in paillettes on tops and dresses or worked into vests of delicate chain mesh. Their recurring presence reflected Silvana’s ongoing negotiation between metamorphosis and precedent.