As the sirens wailed in Piacenza in 1944, a young Giorgio Armani huddled in an air-raid shelter with his family, the ground trembling around them as the Allies dropped their bombs. Outside, resources had long been scarce and rationing was the norm. Not exactly the ingredients of a happy childhood, although decades later, this wartime experience would inform his design philosophy.
“When you have little, you learn to remove everything unnecessary,” Armani recalled in his 2023 autobiography Per Amore (based on a 2015 illustrated book published by Rizzoli). The depravation of his early years shaped his approach to fashion, favouring clean lines and order over chaos, with a deep respect for precision, sensitive to restraint. Even before the war the family’s circumstances were modest. His mother, Maria, went without to…
