Armani Privé celebrates 20 years with a glittering show staged at the house’s opulent new Paris palazzo

In January 2005, 20 years ago this month, the Italian designer Giorgio Armani began Giorgio Armani Privé, the rarefied couture arm of his eponymous Milanese label. Debuting in Paris, the home of haute couture, its name was chosen to suggest ‘rarity and uniqueness... a personal aesthetic pleasure’. But Privé, which is taken from the French word for ‘private’, also evokes the intimate process of an haute couture fitting, whereby garments are adjusted to the exact contours of the client’s body in the hidden realm of the couture salon.

‘Haute couture allows me to step into a realm of captivating fantasy and experimentation. It is both a dream and a service – it’s not about creating clothes for beautiful photos or memorable editorials but designing for a real clientele,’ said the 90-year-old Mr Armani prior to his latest Privé show, held in Paris yesterday evening at the house’s newly inaugurated ‘Palazzo Armani’. An opulent building on Rue François Premier in Paris’ affluent 8th arrondissement, it houses the Privé couture atelier and design studio (a more modern section of the building will become Armani’s Paris offices). ‘It is an outpost of the Armani world with local character,’ says Mr Armani. ‘I am immensely proud of it.’

20 years of Giorgio Armani Privé

Dating back to the mid-19th century, the palatial former home was a private residence until 1912, the years since seeing the 2000 sq m space house various brands before being purchased and renovated by Armani. Yesterday evening, guests were led upstairs past an impressive original marble staircase – its mix of marbles reminiscent of a Venetian palazzo – towards one of the upper floors, whereby a pearlescent runway snaked between a series of rooms, evoking a traditional haute couture salon show (lines of clear plastic chairs ran around the space’s edges).

The lavish rooms, which feature impressive gold mouldings and stuccoes restored under Armani’s direction, were a fitting setting for the designer’s S/S 2025 Privé collection, which as ever was a rich melange of surface embellishment, sculpting lines, and lustrous fabrications, albeit delivered with Mr Armani’s typical insouciance and ease. Referencing a number of Privé’s ‘greatest hits’, the designer said he was once again inspired by the idea of a journey from East to West, with references to the Japanese kimono and obi-belt featuring throughout, as well as nods to the fabrics, colours and silhouettes of Polynesia, North Africa, China and India. He chose the collection’s title, ’Lumierès’, for the way it is designed to catch the light.

The anniversary comes with a whole slew of other milestones for the label in 2025, following last year’s celebration of the designer’s 90th birthday, which included a high-wattage show in New York. Notably, it is 50 years of Giorgio Armani, the label which began the designer’s empire, but it is also ten years of Armani/Silos, the Tadao Ando-designed exhibition space in Milan, 25 years of Armani/Casa, and 15 years since the opening of the first Armani hotel.

With no doubt plenty more milestones to come – the designer has long eschewed any suggestions of retirement – Mr Armani took his victory lap at the end of the show, accompanied by a model wearing one of his gleaming, crystal-adorned creations. ‘I would describe these [past 20] years as the story of another Armani – freer and more glittering – but still unmistakeably the Armani that everyone knows. Haute couture is fashion when it becomes art,’ he concluded, having received a rousing crescendo of applause. ‘Creating is my reason for existing.’

Follow our coverage of Haute Couture Week S/S 2025.

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