The key points
- The first A | X Armani Exchange store in Milan, the largest in Europe, has been inaugurated
Fashion has a damned fear of being really popular, yet it strives for maximum popularity. Now, elitism is wanted to be inclusive, and if it is a contradiction in terms it does not matter: nothing stops the parable of democratic storytelling. But just look at the cards to change your mind.
Giorgio Armani was confronted with the authentic popularity of affordable prices in unsuspected times: in 1981 with the launch of Emporio Armani, the second line that soon grew, cost included, in a sharper version of the Armani style, therefore in fact no longer second line; in 1991 with the launch of A | X Armani Exchange, the transversal superbasic collection with an almost industrial flavor, with graphics with a high visual impact. The success was immediate and vast, even if A | X has long been an American affair, with the Soho store, bare and mechanical, which became a shopping mecca in the rough nineties, and e-commerce launched in 2000 in net advance on the general parable.
All this to underline how Giorgio Armani, who in the collective imagination remains the keeper of a discreet, elegant style, tinged with subtle exoticisms, has never disdained to sell clothes, as well as perfumes, to the masses. Indeed, the successes of almost five decades of activity arise precisely from a careful and subtle balancing of the elite and the popular, with Hollywood glitter and Pantelleria on one side, and logoed underpants, jeans and Acqua di Giò on the other. It’s called diversification, and it’s a business plan that is as ideal as it is complex to implement. The risk is always that one aspect cannibalizes the other, that excessive popularity eats aspiration, without which the mass market is an inevitable abyss.
Here, with Armani this did not happen, essentially by virtue of the author’s communication strength. It may certainly seem excessive that, at his age, King George is still there to expose himself and pontificate, in matters of style and life, yet it is precisely his face that seals the logo for everyone and the embroidery for the elites every time. a unique and changing sign. The map of the Armanian diversification is an aesthetic-industrial plan as well as an approach to commerce that is very evident in Milan, the permanent center of gravity of the brand’s values, with the stores divided between the precious heart of the quadrilateral – the flagship line – concept store in via Manzoni-Emporio – and, a few days ago, the very popular Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, where last weekend, with a soft opening in line with times that require pragmatism and a low profile, Giorgio Armani inaugurated the first Milanese store of A | X Armani Exchange, the largest in Europe. The line, reacquired in 2014 with a distribution restructuring plan, has been part of the portfolio of the three brands of the Armani group since 2017, and is now in full expansion.
It is the yang pop of yin greige. Of course, aesthetically the nineties are cited, the true apogee of armanism in all its facets, but the operation is carried out with acumen, and with the desire to truly dialogue with people. If popular inclusiveness must be, in fact, here it is in every way, from the location to the selection of personnel, which took place with an open call on social media. Here, it is this ability to speak with the people of the street and with the stars that keeps the empire solid and united, suturing the center with the periphery. Armani has long influenced fashion little, but it has become part of the popular costume: a titan conquest.