This epic Emporio Armani voyage was framed by the backdrop of a black lighthouse, and opened and closed with Loredana Berte’s 1983 classic “Il Mare D’inverno (Winter Sea)” on the Teatro sound system. The song is a raspily moody power ballad that includes the (translated) line: “I dive, perplexed, into moments I have already experienced.” It made a beautifully fitting bookend for a collection that was in many aspects vintage Armani, but which also demonstrated how his huge archive of creativity is still alive to the eddies and currents of contemporary weather.
Armani’s transatlantic crossing at the turn of the 1980s was what made him a Time magazine cover star and the single most influential shaper of menswear design that decade. Generations later, his models that walked on a greige and charcoal seascape runway wore garments that echoed those achievements but were not moments we had already experienced. Tailored jackets for men and women were cut broad at the shoulder but almost cropped at the skirt, with single vents or none at all. Trousers were cut wide and loose but precisely structured via pleating at the side and even the back of the legs.
The opening section leaned heavily into the nautical theme but there was only one wayward glimpse of a Breton stripe: way too French. Instead there were some dark navy wool and chambray separates (and a boiler suit) subtly styled to present the full gamut of a liner’s staff from the engine room to the captain’s chair. After this came a broad demographic of guests clad in flowing tailoring cut with casual ease in tonal browns and beiges. There was a skiwear section—a regular intermission within the seasonal Emporio story—before a shift into black and charcoal which included frothily light-catching encrustations of barnacle and coraline embellishments in crystal on some closings. Others pieces were crafted in heavy leather—so heavy you thought of it as hide—but which was still fashioned to drape its way down the body. Near the end were a series of midnight blue looks with double face outerwear and a pair of pants that were embedded with crystals that gleamed like moonlight on the sea.
In a quote that was mailed to us, Mr. Armani reflected: “I have never hidden my love for the sea, a symbol of freedom and adventure. This season, however, I reflected on the Atlantic crossing and the ships that have braved it. It is a way for me to explore the spirit of Emporio, with an emphasis on the fluid transition between masculine and feminine. Something natural to me yet always radical.” This was Emporio at high tide. Mr. Armani came out and took his bow at the foot of his lighthouse.
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