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Armani Prive: Inheriting Couture

Giorgio Armani did something peculiarly revolutionary Monday in the opening night of the Paris haute couture season – he sent out a collection whose every piece the women in the audience could wear.

It’s one of the oddities of couture – the chemistry lab of fashion – that many shows contain experiments that don’t quiet come off rather than clothes than click. That’s part of the culture of couture and why for any serious fashion lover attending a couture season is an absolute requirement in one’s style education, akin to going to Lourdes for a reverent Catholic or completing the Hajj for a Moslem.

Armani, judged on the span of his career, is probably the most influential designer of the past few decades, has made his reputation on a willingness to sacrifice fantasy and experimentation. That’s one reason Armani frequently talks about himself in the third person singular, as if the other guy, his house and label, won’t let him stray from certain codes.

Armani Prive’s spring 2008 couture had some great images and fashion, especially when Giorgio was being Giorgio – his opening selection of artfully cut trapeze skirts and snug glove like jackets looked great. Made in large chalk stripe or jagged checker super fine wools, they had loads of class, and seem to mesmerize Armani’s audience that included everyone from Hillary Swank, Dita Von Teese and Gray’s Anatomy’s Ellen Pompeo to Claudia Cardinale and Sofia Loren.

The Italian couturier also showed a first rate collection of accessorizes including beautiful lizard high heels finished with origami curls and twirls, splendid snakeskin bags twisted into oval patterns and some clunky yet refined bracelets and armbands in Perspex and metal.

Also admirable were erratically pleated organza cocktails, again with origami effects and swirling patterned prints used both in jackets and shoes in a hyper coordinated look.

“A little taste of surrealism,” was Armani’s definition of this collection’s coiled organza dresses, which led to the finale.

That’s when Armani came unstuck. It was almost as if he was trying too hard – with too many, loops, bends, coils and weaves. Adding to the confusion there was a curiously un-Armani incident when there was a yawning gap and we waited for what seemed like ages (even if it was only 20 seconds) for any model to appear. And when she did – it turned out to be Brazilian beauty Flavia De Oliveira – she stormed down the catwalk in the Palais de Chaillot, opposite the Eiffel Tower in high dudgeon without a single turn.

Moreover the shiny plastic runway meant every second hand, or even weirder, cheek you brushed, produced a slight electrostatic shock, a small flaw but a telling one for such a perfectionist as Armani.

Odder still, Giorgio invited 150 beautiful people to dinner in La Maison Blanche, many featured in the Roger Moenks’ new book Inheriting Beauty on whose cover is his niece Roberta, but then skipped his own soiree and flew back to Milan.

In a word, though there elegant moments in this collection, this was not, quite, a great couture moment.

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