Inside Giorgio Armani’s Private Paris

A few weeks ago, during a Milan Fashion Week unlike any other, hundreds of people wondered what the future of fashion could be like, having just lost a towering figure of its past. While we’ve never seen so many new designers at the helms of design houses with names as legendary as their sales figures are colossal, there was one man, who left the scene in September, who understood long before anyone else did that fashion isn’t just about style, clothes, or history: it’s also about geography.

That man was Giorgio Armani, whose death on September 4 plunged Milan and the whole of Italy into deep mourning. The couturier, a giant of fashion, also left his mark on the urbanism—and not just the shop windows—of Italy’s Lombardy over the course of his 50-year career, not only with boutiques, but also his restaurants, his all-grey concrete theater designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, the brutalist silhouette of his Silos museum, his hotel, or the giant logo of the Emporio label that greets, night and day, the millions of travelers passing through Milan-Linate airport. His visual legacy there is inescapable.

Yet there’s another great world capital that bears the Armani imprint just as prominently: Paris. The City of Light, with its infinite fashion landmarks—Gabrielle Chanel’s right bank, Saint Laurent’s left bank, Sonia Rykiel’s asymmetrical Saint-Germain-des-Prés—was for him more than an obligatory stop on his itinerary. Last July, Giorgio Armani celebrated the twentieth anniversary of his Armani Privé couture line in the sumptuous Palazzo Armani, just opened in the heart of the Golden Triangle: a private mansion on the street side, with all the moldings and gilding needed to house his office, and, on the courtyard side, a modern building with a style as refined as his fashion. It was on this occasion that Giorgio Armani granted us a rare interview, one of his very last, on what Paris meant to him, a diminutive Italian from Plaisance who set out to conquer the world.

“I first discovered Paris in the 1970s. It was a magical time,” he said. “There was a lot going on, and a desire for hedonism and escapism. Especially since, in 1974, I started working with Ungaro. There was a real spirit of camaraderie between the designers, a bit like in Milan. A few years later, I remember running into Valentino at the Plaza Athénée. I’d just been on the cover of Time magazine, and all he said to congratulate me was ‘Però!”

His office on rue François-Ier.

Marco Erba

By 1990, Armani had found a Paris address worthy of its status: the Place Vendôme. Until the 2000s, he brought his various labels together at number 6, fusing his luxurious minimalism with the façade and Grand Siècle details of the Hôtel Thibert des Martrais. He then spread his businesses out, from Avenue Montaigne to Avenue George-V or Rue Saint-Honoré. He even found space in even Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where he opened, in the space that had housed popular drugstore Publicis, a boutique, sharing space with his first restaurant in Paris, as well as his private apartment. There was an outcry. Faced with the invasion of luxury brands like Cartier, Dior, and Louis Vuitton, the neighborhood was in an uproar. A petition gathered three thousand signatures to defend the “soul” of the area, a project personally supported by Juliette Gréco.

Giorgio Armani at his boutique in Rue Saint-Honoré.Armani

Clever, elegant, and cautious, Giorgio Armani arranged for the muse-turned-activist to meet his architect. Three years later, on Boulevard Saint-Germain, he unveiled his Armani Casa boutique, offering Japanese lanterns in Murano glass, boxes covered in shagreen, furniture in iroko wood, or upholstered in parchment. His businesses are still there, and the Michelin-starred restaurant bearing his name is now one of the best Italian restaurants in Paris.

It has to be said that the couturier-entrepreneur, the first to launch into the lifestyle spaces that all his competitors eventually emulated, sensed the moods of the city since he first got to know it.

“In the 1970s and early 1980s, haute couture was in decline,” he said. “Those of us who worked in ready-to-wear were resolutely opposed to it. But I remember some breathtaking Saint Laurent shows that left a lasting impression on me, and the wonders that Karl Lagerfeld did at Chanel. And, although far removed from my own aesthetic, I admired the talent and creativity of Christian Lacroix at Patou. It’s thanks to these designers that haute couture has regained its place,” he told us at the time. And when he himself launched himself into this highly codified and magical discipline at the dawn of the new millennium, it was of course in Paris that he decided to show his work.

He swore: “I didn’t decide to go into haute couture on a whim. I had an established, demanding clientele, and many women were asking me for more exclusive, personalized pieces. The next logical step was to create a collection.”

Paris opened its arms to him, though the relationship between Armani and the city had its occasional friction over half a century, such as the 1998 fashion show at Place Saint-Sulpice, to which the 1,500 guests were denied access for “security reasons.” La Reppublica thundered “Paris ‘expels’ Italy,” and Le Monde wrote of “the affront to Giorgio Armani.” The couturier took his revenge in a series of interview in the media, but it did nothing, in the end, to dent his love affair with the capital, where his couture is showcased in the most important addresses on both shores. “I’ve had the privilege of exhibiting my creations in exceptional places, from the Italian Embassy to the Petit Palais.”

Giorgio Armani, surrounded by Michel-Jacques Perrochon (Lipp), Miroslav Siljegovic (Café de Flore) and Jacques Mathivat at Les Deux Magots, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Raphael GAILLARDE/Getty Images

What remains even now is the man’s private Paris. To follow in his footsteps, you’ll have to lose yourself in the antique shops of Rue de Beaune, in the Écume des Pages bookshop on the banks of the Seine, or at the Fondation Pinault. These were the places where this hard-working artist would indulge, incognito, in solitary moments. “I don’t have much free time,” he confided before taking his leave, “but when I do, I like to take long walks, especially along the river. I always stop at the Pont Alexandre III, which offers one of the most beautiful views in Paris. It’s the perfect place to pause, collect your thoughts, and recharge your batteries. I rarely have time for such moments, but for me, Paris will always be a city where it’s good to stroll.”

Originally published at Vanity Fair France.