Emporio Armani’s Sabbatical Chic

Tag : Neoprene Fabric
Emporio Armanis Sabbatical Chic Godfrey Deeny
June 23rd, 2008 @ 00:55 AM - Milan
Handling the continuing economic woes has been a key theme in theopening weekend of the Italian mens spring 2009 collections andGiorgio Armani had a clear recipe for action  take some time off.

What was the key garment in the opening of his very fine EmporioArmani collection? Beautiful, striped pajama pants, idle forlounging around on a sun drenched break after being laid off fromthe City. The designers finale? High tech and floral shorts andneoprene jackets for some south Asia surfing burning through yourseverance packet.

Blue was the color and taking it easy the game in this collection,where the 73-year-old, but ever youthful, Armani dreamt up somegenuinely great new cuts for narrow shouldered jackets that hungever so lovingly askew and micro blazers with techie finishes.

Giorgio, a designer always loathe to chase a trend, hadnevertheless honed on the whole new micro silhouette dominatingmens fashion, but made it his own with tight sleeves and hypernarrow shawl collars.

His fabric treatments also had all the savvy of Giorgios modernistDNA; semi shiny finishes that smartly updated linens, leathers andmixes of silk and polyester.

His final passages did get a tad absurd: will real men, even onlong leave, don shorts with puckered, girly pockets? We think not.But the majority of this collection was great clobber for guysindulging in well-earned free time. No wonder the audience including Australian soccer great Tim Cahill, Kennedy scion BobbyShriver and actor Josh Harnett, star of the black and white ad forGiorgios new scent Diamonds that kicked off the show in Armaniscostume built theatre - gave designers such hearty applause.

One of the curiosities of Armanis remarkable career is that as hecreeps through his seventies, his best and brightest ideas areoften seen in collections of Emporio, his younger, jazzier line.They say you cant teach an old dog new tricks. Dont tell that toGiorgio, whose ability to be permanently original is prettyastounding.

And so to the beaches my friends.