R.I.P GIORGIO ARMANI

I was never chasing the Giorgio Armani lifestyle. I could never have afforded it for a start. I don’t do beige, nor any colour between brown and cream, and this was a designer who revolutionized the fashion industry with his soft padded, deconstructed re-inventions of the suit – both for men and women – and invented the term ‘greige’ (I summed up my feelings in more detail about the always, sometimes overly, ‘tasteful’ Armani Universo in a piece on his by-the-book, Milan-Paris haute-generality perfume Nuances if you feel like a deeper, Chapmanian delve).

And yet the first (and last?) ‘designer’ item of clothing I ever bought was a muted khaki blouson denim jacket by Emporio Armani at the age of 16. I had seen it at a posh men’s clothing store that opened at the top of our road, Dovehouse Lane – the same place I bought my first ever perfume, Xeryus by Givenchy. At that age, saving up money from my paper round or working in a record shop on Saturdays to pay for one item of luxury I had been coveting was very exciting. And it was good to have that feeling at least once, just to understand it, but also see through it (I have nothing but philosophical contempt for those who believe that buying a Louis Vuitton handbag or Balenciaga sneakers will somehow ‘elevate’ them in society); I was also buying into the same ethos I suppose by getting all frilly round the gills thinking how cool I would look in my new jacket, with its slightly too exaggerated and rounded shoulders and poufy sleeves – even though deep down I knew it didn’t really suit me. When it finally went on sale I rushed up to the shop and handed over the money to the sales assistant – a grand old 75 pounds if I remember correctly- came home and stared at the label for hours on end as it lay on my bed with a sense of invidious victory. I wore it a few times, and realized it looked crap – but it was certainly an interesting youthful lesson to have learned.

I fared much better with Mr Armani’s first men’s fragrance, Armani Pour Homme, which was my first ever signature, and about which I have previously written on several occasions with great affection. Xeryus never really worked – much as the girls loved it at school – I only ever really enjoyed the top notes. The citruses in Armani – the crispest ever? – Sicilian lime, bergamot, mandarin, and green orange; basil-tinted over nutmeg and vetiver moss – blew my mind as a slender adolescent and I wore it for several years. Later in life, I came also to adore Armani Pour Femme – his first ever fragrance, and in my view, a masterpiece. I still wear both to this day.

Armani’s biggest blockbuster by far – and probably the engine for much of the company’s financial growth (still – quite an impressive feat – independently owned – the man controlled everything), was, and still is, Armani Aqua Di Gio Pour Homme – the smell the nineties, not CK One as is often erroneously assumed. I personally detest it – so ubiquitous you couldn’t escape it for years, all that calone and freshness and underlying woody London gayclub business – it desperately got on my nerves, ingeniously constructed though it undoubtedly was. I liked the women’s edition, Aqua Di Gio, which came first – Helen had that one when it came out, a new departure for her – this was aquatic in a joyous, foamy, fruity very turquoise way, Aphrodite on a surfboard in Capri, and was a clever transition from the original Gio (see my review from last year, ‘Throat Grabber’ – which tells you everything you need to know about that most unsubtle of orange blossom tuberoses that I secretly have a buxom soft spot for).

Orange blossom, that Mediterranean symbol of sunshine and happy freedom, was obviously a love of Giorgio Armani – it is probably the note I personally associate the most with his fragrances. Ordinarily, I blanch or migraine up very quickly at any airport’s Duty Free (don’t you?) – the vast majority of perfumes on offer for the masses literally disgusting – a pit of stomach nausea and a tightening cerebral compression as they bore through like drills to your cortext – though I thought Si Passione, that perfume as red as nail enamel, had reached a certain convincing zenith of that particularly overdosed fiori di aranci archetype that symbolizes the done-up-to-the-nines Italian donna. Last August, at Singapore Changi Airport I was also surprised to find myself liking My Way Floral – stupid name but a really lovely Tunisian neroli, with all the citric trimmings that I was almost verging on buying (a very big compliment for me). Otherwise, pleb-wise (Armani was one of the earliest to adopt the higher echelon Privé social segregations of perfume versus the Christmas Presents For The Chavs Boots gift sets), it was all the neverending flankers of Codes, White She, Stronger Yous (god help us) and all the other rum clichés that his Money Engine department must have been drumming up on a regular basis (Mania, from 1999, was an exception to this rule of commercial dullness- a spiced, warm woody oddity I once owned and partially enjoyed, but, being vaguely interesting, it was obviously quickly discarded from the pitiless Milanese roster – and now goes for a fortune on eBay for those in the Manic Know).

To the Privés. I kept track of them for a while and always thought they had a certain rich, muted, simplicity and holistic wholeness that made them alluring. I have Eclat De Jasmin, which I bought from a Yokohama recycle shop, and though it reminds me a bit of plasticine, it has a certain oddness that makes me want to keep it in the collection. I liked some of the fresher perfumes in this collection, (Oranger D’Alhambra is heavenly, D and I enjoyed Figuier D’Eden; I quite enjoyed his Vetiver Babylone and one of the most precious and hard to find perfumes in the world, La Femme Bleue, a sample of which was gifted to me by the lovely Birgit of Olfactoria, when the world was so much less fascistic and you could send things through the post; Armani have done some very solid oud/rose Middle Eastern elixirs transposed through an Italianate lens, such as Ambre D’Orient and Myrrhe Imperiale; many of these I would quite gladly own and wear on occasion if I found them cheaply (good luck with that ).

So many of the high end Armani perfumes have passed me by over the years, though, and so many have been launched in the ensuing years of torrential perfume releases, that I have lost touch with the Privés (do, then, please enlighten me on any must tries that have slipped me by. Do readers on here rate the line highly overall?). On freewheeling Tokyo days, I would sometimes go up to Ginza to the towering, intimidating flagship store on Designer Boulevard – just down from Hermès – and sample some of those sage and demure perfumes with their amethyst, jade and magenta pebbleish caps – and be vaguely pleased by them. You would never find me in an Armani cafe or Hotel or any other Armanified building – I am allergic to such spaces – the Bulgari restaurant in Ometesando with its logo-embossed chocolates, for example – what, ingesting a brand as well as buying into the entire cosmos of brand diversifications where they want you surrender your very soul – and then your branded digestive system to a conglomerate — I think not.

This all said, I respected him. He was so…….Armani. There was a dignity there; a through line of stability and true-to-himself-ness that must have been extremely control-freaky in the extreme to witness up close, but then again the successful often need that level of uncompromising fixation on their own craft and image to make their way in the world and stay there, and he had a reputation for being very gentlemanly. As one of the richest men in Italy, and a national icon, Armani had a blistering successful career you can only stand back and applaud. He dressed the rich and famous, his designs were often extremely elegant, imprinted in the global conscious. I also admired his cultural position as a sober, if conservative, ‘elderly gay statesman’ in the industry, conferring a certain gravitas on his sexuality that engendered respect. Where would we be without all the homosexual artistic geniuses – Michaelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Caravaggio? Yves Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Karl Lagerfeld? Armani was an important part of this aspect of human cultural history – and something worth remembering in these increasingly homophobic times. He was unstoppable; working, apparently, right up until the last days of his life – and he leaves an important legacy. I will be re-investigating all the Armani perfumes in my collection over the coming days. Do give me some of your own reminiscences. To have have positively touched or impacted another human being in this life through the impulse of your creativity- even if ‘only’ through a ‘diffusion’ line of a fashion company with your name embossed on the clothing label, or a flacon of scent – like my beloved Armani Pour Femme and Pour Homme, perfumes I cherish- strikes me as something worth commemorating and celebrating.

R.I.P.