Ensemble
Giorgio Armani · ca. 1979
Giorgio Armani
- Relaxed tailoring
- Understated suiting
Giorgio Armani helped make relaxed construction and understated fabrics central to modern tailoring. His unstructured jacket moved from menswear into women’s wardrobes, where it could be combined with trousers or full skirts.
Official house website
Five looks to know
Collection selection
Ensemble
ca. 1979
Armani’s softly constructed jacket is paired with a full pleated skirt in this ensemble given to The Met by Lauren Bacall. The museum links such designs to his adaptation of the unstructured jacket for women. Earth-toned fabrics and relaxed tailoring offered a distinctive approach to professional dressing during the late 1970s.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Collection selection
Ensemble
ca. 1980
A narrow belt gathers this checked brown ensemble at the waist, above a full, knee-length skirt. The high neckline, long sleeves and softly shaped outline create a coordinated daywear silhouette. The Met dates the ensemble to about 1980 and records wool throughout its components, with silk, plastic and metal also present.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Collection selection
Ensemble
fall/winter 1993–94
A vivid floral pattern extends across both jacket and trousers in this evening ensemble. The coordinated suit combines a long, fluid line with a richly decorated surface, expanding the visual range of Armani’s tailoring. The museum identifies silk, glass and metal and dates the look to fall/winter 1993–94.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Collection selection
Relaxed menswear ensemble
Spring/summer 1994
This cream and tan ensemble combines a collarless jacket with fluid trousers, a long shirt and a scarf. The V&A records linen and cotton for the jacket and trousers, cotton for the shirt, and silk and linen for the scarf. Its relaxed layers illustrate Armani’s approach to soft tailoring in the spring/summer 1994 collection.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Collection selection
Evening dress
2012 · V&A collection
Black silk, embroidered with blue glass crystals and sequins; shantung skirt; embroidered tulle.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonCollections & archive pieces
2 collections represented · 4 piecesca. 1979
1 piece · Season not recorded
ca. 1980
1 piece · Season not recorded
Ensemble
Giorgio Armani · ca. 1980
fall/winter 1993–94
1 piece
Ensemble
Giorgio Armani · fall/winter 1993–94
Spring/summer 1994
1 piece
Relaxed menswear ensemble
Giorgio Armani · Spring/summer 1994
About Giorgio Armani
The selected garments trace that approach from late-1970s professional dressing to a richly patterned evening suit, demonstrating that his tailoring vocabulary accommodated several degrees of decoration.