Designer Giorgio Armani turns 80 today. From his best runway moments to A-list friends, see highlights of his life and career.
Mr. Armani taks a bow following his latest couture presentation during Paris Fashion Week.
Dominique Charriau/Getty
The designer celebrates the completion of his menswear show for Emporio Armani in Milan on January 14, 2013 with a bow.
Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty
Armani appeared onstage with his models for the finale of the Giorgio Armani Privé Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2011 show during Paris Haute Couture last week. The collection, which was inspired by the Far East, was particularly well received. T’s Sally Singer called it “one of his finest since launching the haute couture line 6 years ago.”
Armani was selected to design the official wedding dress for Charlene Wittstock when she married Prince Albert of Monaco on July 2, which he attended with his niece Roberta. The dress was made of ivory satin and adorned with 40,000 Swarovski crystals. It was hand-embroidered, with a dramatic train.
In September 2010, Armani and Martin Scorsese attend the GQ Men of the Year Awards at the Royal Opera House in London. Armani was named Designer of the Year by the magazine.
Armani himself turned out to celebrate the second annual Fashion’s Night Out—the annual international shopping bonanza thrown by Anna Wintour—in 2010. He posed with model Claudia Schiffer in his London store.
Armani poses with models following his Spring/Summer 2010 ready-to-wear fashion show in September 2009 during women's fashion week in Milan.
The designer attended an event during Milan Fashion Week in February 2010 with Claire Danes.
At Armani’s Fall 2010 couture show in Paris, fans Mafalda Von Hessen, Cate Blanchett, Claudia Cardinale, Elsa Pataky, Megan Fox, and Kasia Smutniak pose for a happy-birthday shot with the designer.
The designer got a visit from Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour backstage at his Armani Privé Haute Couture presentation in Paris in 2009.
Victoria and David Beckham were the stars of a series of steamy advertisements for Emporio Armani’s 2009 underwear campaign.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy presented Armani with the Legion of Honor medal at the Elysée Palace in Paris in July 2008.
Benoit Tessier / AP Photo
Actress Katie Holmes has been a big admirer of Armani’s work, wearing his gowns to both the Giorgio Armani Celebrates the Oscars party in 2007 and her wedding to Tom Cruise in Rome in 2006.
Armani spreads his wings in front of models from his Autumn/Winter 2005 show in Tokyo.
Richard Gere and Lauren Hutton both wore Armani in the 1980 film American Gigolo (left), and posed again in the designer’s clothing at the launch of his retrospective at the Royal Academy, London, in 2003.
The designer and a model go on a stroll in 2002 in Moscow, where the first Armani store in Russia opened in September of that year.
The designer poses next to one of his creations at a retrospective at Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum in 2001.
Armani poses with one of his muses, Gwyneth Paltrow, at the grand opening of his Manhattan store.
Dave Allocca, Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images
Embracing an old friend, Italian actress Sophia Loren.
A young Armani fits a Milanese man for a suit jacket.
The designer works with a swath of plaid fabric in Milan in 1982.
Early in his career, Armani poses with an unidentified model in a dress with a mile-long skirt.
