“Perfectly imperfect”: Silvana Armani brings cautious change to Giorgio Armani
For Fall/Winter 2026, Silvana Armani’s first solo collection for the Giorgio Armani line suggested careful evolution, while Emporio Armani hinted at a more strategic play for the next generation.
Fashion moves fast, but it’s worth remembering that it’s only been six months since Giorgio Armani’s death. Now, everybody is looking for change, but to the extended family to whom he passed the torch, it’s still a sensitive process. Following an haute couture collection in January where many noticed a shift in silhouette, on Sunday in Via Borgonuovo, the founder’s niece Silvana Armani showed her first solo collection for Giorgio Armani. Like the couture collection, her gestures of transformation were gentle and graceful.
“This collection explores a new perspective on the Armani style. It is fluid, enveloping, perfectly imperfect,” her show notes stated. It was most evident in the opening looks: loose and languid suits styled casually with diaphanous mock-neck blouses that poked out from the jumpers worn under the blazers. They reflected a nonchalance that may have been too imperfect for Mr Armani’s taste, but which felt modern. Floor-length statement coats – some in leather, some in raincoat material – followed, cutting a directional silhouette.
This collection explores a new perspective on the Armani style. It is fluid, enveloping,
perfectly imperfect
Silvana Armani
As the show progressed, shapes and proportions became more traditional Armani as we’ve known them over the last decades: nomadic, pragmatic, louche, with a themed colour scheme of burgundy and blues. When it comes to the Giorgio Armani line – the holy grail in the company – it seems the family is exercising a certain amount of caution, or just natural, gradual progress. Instead, a bigger change was felt at Emporio Armani on Thursday.
There, Silvana Armani and her menswear counterpart Leo Dell’Orco presented a collaborative co-ed collection, which tapped into new generations’ newfound love of heritage dressing, old-world dress codes and moneyed formality. It showed Emporio Armani – which has historically been more versatile when it comes to directional change, also under the founder – in a trend-driven light that could well be its future. As a competitor to Ralph Lauren’s Polo, which is all the rage with the youth, it could spell big change in the changing landscape of Armani.
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