Armani in the Name of the Rose

«Red to me is something very exotic. Red is lacquer, it comes from China or Japan», Giorgio Armani explained the dominant color of many looks of his new Armani Privé haute couture collection with one of his now very rare backstage preview tours of the collection. Agnese, his fêtiche model, wears a red wedding dress with three-dimensional roses applied. «There is a lot of red and black in the latest looks. However, there is also a turn to gold, a color loved by Arab customers».

Upon arrival on the floor, which was set up in a pavilion on the Esplanade des Invalides, guests were welcomed on two rows of seats, looking out over a black-and-white checkered floor. In the front row, actresses who are fans of the designer, from Laura Dern to Emma Thompson, and Kate Hudson. The collection paginates a bloom of red roses. Glossy, lacquered roses, embossed on surfaces in a pattern touched by the graphic sign of black and with shiny gold accents. A journey from West to East through elongated silhouettes for a collection that reinterprets the most representative of flowers without simple romanticism. The rose, linked to the female imagination and the world of couture, is here seen through the Designer’s sensitivity and sense of precision. «The silks are coated, the petals are worked three-dimensionally like sculptures. For me, couture is culture» Giorgio Armani added.

The lines are sharp and supple. Small jackets, long skirts, fluid trousers, tight dresses that sculpt the figure and heels that are always slim and slender. Petals and buds mix with rhythmic geometries, lines of light, suggestions of other worlds and cultures, creating a composite design in which the protagonist is a woman who is aware of her own seduction.

Judgment. Armani in the Name of the Rose. It is a study in red on women’s silhouettes, a reference to an elegant and dreamy East, to a timeless and never shouted style. «A rose by any other name would smell as sweet» Shakespeare’s Juliet said. Red is the color of passion, even civil passion, as in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s trilogy Three Colors. A burning passion for fashion. (All rights reserved)