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by LUKE LEITCH, Evening Standard
For nearly three decades Giorgio Armani’s sophisticated clothes have been coveted by the world’s most affluent people including leading Hollywood stars.
Now the 68-year-old Italian’s fashion will be elevated to high art in the Royal Academy’s autumn blockbuster show.
The V&A, the National Portrait Gallery and the Design Museum have all hosted fashion-led exhibitions – and Zandra Rhodes’s brand new Fashion & Textile Museum launches its first on Monday.
But this will be the first time a major London art gallery has devoted an exhibition to the works of a single fashion designer.
The RA has yet to finalise details, but the Standard has learned the Armani exhibition will be the first show in its new gallery in Burlington Gardens.
The former Museum of Mankind was bought by the RA in 2001 for £5 million and is being refurbished as part of a £40 million project that will double the Academy’s exhibition space.
RA secretary Norman Rosenthal joined Giorgio Armani this week at the exhibition’s opening party at Berlin’s Nieu Nationalgalerie.
Mr Rosenthal said two years ago: “I personally wouldn’t do an Armani exhibition.” He has clearly changed his mind since the V&A’s Versace show and the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition of portraits by fashion photographer Mario Testino proved fashion can be big for art galleries.
The show will display more than 400 of Armani’s creations from his 28 years at the helm of his fashion house, along with sketches, photographs and videos.
The designer’s huge impact on Hollywood will be the subject of the exhibition’s final section.
According to Teri Agins, author of The End Of Fashion: “He was the first designer to milk his celebrity connections by developing a publicity machine to get his clothes on the backs of Hollywood’s most influential and visible A-list.”
Off-screen, Armani has long been the label of choice for film’s leading ladies, seen every year by billions of potential customers. He is the world’s richest fashion designer, with an income of £84 million in 1999 alone.
Armani, now in London, said it was an honour to have his work shown at the Royal Academy of Art.
He added: “I have always seen fashion as an opportunity for cultural exchange. And London today, more than ever before, represents the international crossroads for creative ideas – a true melting-pot.”
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