Giorgio Armani Gets Personal With GQ

by Sydney Sadick

GQ’s editor-at-large Michael Hainey sat down with Giorgio Armani for an in-depth interview about the Italian designer’s rise to success. With an iconic fashion empire and personal fortune estimated at over $7 billion, things sound pretty swell for Armani. With the brand turning 40 this year, the designer got personal and shared his story in the mag’s June issue. Here are the five most intriguing tidbits from the interview avec Armani…

On his puppeteer days: My brother and I did puppet shows with puppets that we made of wood and clothes that I fashioned out of scraps of cloth that I scavenged. We were very poor, but we had a lot of enthusiasm.”

On his secret ambition: “Sometimes fear made me lose time. But, in reality, there’s not much I haven’t done. [laughs] As a young man, at one point, I wanted to be an actor. I was a good-looking guy and probably would have had some luck.” 

On being shy: I’ve dealt with things I never thought were possible. The public, the press, the echoes around the world. And the pretense that I had to sustain. I had to fake being up to the challenge. Apart from the painful things I had to overcome. It was very heavy. Very heavy. Not only for love, but because there were people missing from my life.”

On the last time he cried: “Last night. I cry often. All I have to do is think, and my eyes water. So, I can’t hide it. That’s why I hide from relationships, from confrontations. And this sensitivity that grows with age comes from when I was a child. But I’m not ashamed of it. I don’t fight it. I think now, at this point in my life, I manage maybe to be more myself than I have ever been.”

On what he would change about the fashion world: The excessive speed of today’s fashion. We are required to churn out ideas and collections with enormous speed, but invention and quality take time. My solution is continuity: I evolve at my own pace, because the women and men I dress expect this from me, not just ideas that are only good for the catwalk. Fashion once again needs to find a more human and real rhythm.”

Read the full article here.

 

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Jake Zukowski July 15, 2015 - 12:23 PM

FYI, the link you have isn’t live any more. But I found the article on the Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20150529195719/http://www.gq.com/style/celebrities/201506/giorgio-armani-interview

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