Giorgio Armani is remaking the suits that made his name

Giorgio Armani is a reliable king. For all of menswear’s newfound waviness, and a production cycle that feels like it’s constantly upping its dosage of uppers, the Italian fashion veteran luxuriates in his time-tested signature. Navy is his colour. The tailoring is immaculate and effortless. The models at his show – always held in an auditorium of clean lines and cold glass at the Milan HQ – walk slowly, self-assured, confident, but doing this whole fashion thing in their own time. The metaphor isn’t lost on menswear’s commentariat.

But for all of the consistency, new school Giorgio Armani has developed since old school Giorgio Armani, and the designer has decided to celebrate his archives with a new capsule collection. It’s still distinctly Giorgio Armani. But the designer has honed in on the proto-suits upon which he built his sprawling empire: the boxy, languid, Wall Street super tailoring from a time when Wall Street was, visually at least, pretty cool. “My first suits were a response to what was happening in society in that moment, the late ‘70s and early ’80s,” he tells GQ over email. “Women were climbing up the workplace ladder, men discarding rigidities and opting for a softer masculinity. These simultaneous movements merged into a single vision of soft tailoring that could work both. It was all quite radical.”

Launching exclusively in Selfridges today, the collection is unisex, harking back to the gender fluidity that underpinned the brand from the off. Look to his prior work, and there’s little difference to the suits worn by the impossibly beautiful men and women of a Giorgio Armani ad campaign. They’re just good suits.

For 2023, that means relaxed tailoring that hark back to the big exaggerations of the ‘80s power suit. The trousers are wide, and the coats are long. It’s just the right amount of “No can do, I’ve got an 8:30 res at Dorsia”. But that’s not say the collection is pure nostalgia. Giorgio Armani’s latest collection sits within the new diktats of menswear: you can wear this stuff with sneakers, you can switch out the shirts for vests, listen, you don’t even have to wear a tie these days. But it’s better if you do.

It’s still textbook Giorgio Armani, though. “My favourite men’s suit is the perfect blend of soft tailoring and lines that accompany the body without forcing it,” says Mr Armani. “There can be no elegance without naturalness.”

The capsule drops at a time when tailoring seems to be picking up speed again. The suit is not dead. In fact, the doomsayers couldn’t be more wrong as brands like Drake’s, Husbands and Tiger of Sweden find themselves filling street style photos once more. Just last week, Armani industries shocked everyone by announcing a collab between its offshoot label Emporio Armani and cult Nordic outfit Our Legacy. Brands want to connect with the guy who does it best – and the man who changed suits forever. “I pioneered the idea of ‘deconstructing the jacket, and by doing so I made it come alive on the body,” says Mr Armani. “By taking the most traditional piece of clothing – a jacket – and applying a different design formula to it, I started something of a tailoring revolution, making it comfortable, as well as chic and elegant. It was hugely influential, and allowed tailoring to become contemporary, and so it flourished at that time.”

It flourishes pretty hard now, too.