Review of Giorgio Armani Fall 2023 Men’s Fashion Show
Homecoming King
By Mark Wittmer
Continuing with his post-pandemic theme of working from home – which began with the Spring 2022 menswear show that saw Mr. Armani make the surprising and personal move of returning to showing at his own home and former HQ at Via Borgonuovo – the legendary designer’s Fall 2023 show was held in the underground runway space of the palazzo, and intimate room that was a familiar fashion focal point through the 90s, and has happily become so once again.
It’s a fitting return for Milan fashion’s original leading luminary, who is just as excited about blurring menswear categories now as when he was first making his name with it.
While things still stay right around the upper echelon of ultimate masculine elegance, and the atmosphere does feel anachronistically formal, Armani infuses it with an imaginative yet precise reconsideration of what menswear categories can and should belong together.
The first series of looks kept things formal yet cozy with gray tweed as the styling team played with the idea of a suit’s inherent layers, mixing, matching, and sometimes nixing coats, jackets, vests, and silk shirting. Up top, the cuts feel classic, while pants move into some wider and more fluid territory, with one surprising inclusion of a loose yet tapered cargo pant actually echoing a familiar streetwear style.
Other subtle experiments continued what has been an ongoing dialogue between Armani, its customers, and the shifting style trends around them, like the interesting inclusion of cinched hoods on a few jackets or the use of monogram. While it’s a bit tough to imagine the typical Armani customer springing for the former, it’s exciting to see a more conservative menswear staple take risks and mix it up.
A bit of a WWII-era military aviation and motorcycle strain could be detected in the smart bomber and moto jackets, in accessories like riding boots, gloves, and sunglasses, and more generally in the powerful, tapered silhouettes.
While it’s understandable that the brand would want to push its Neve collection for the Fall/Winter season – skiwear is big right now – it doesn’t feel necessary to have included it in the runway show. A campaign could have better shown these mountain-ready red and gray looks in action, and it created a bit of a break in rhythm before the evening wear capped things off. Things did get interesting, though, in the brief window when the main collection and the Neve collection seemed to merge.
In a way it was exciting to see the co-ed pairs of models who wore the collection’s final looks, glittering and elegant black-tie (though there were no literal ties) evening wear, act like actual couples on their way into a dinner party because it broke the stuffy runway mold. But it also felt cheesy and awkward.
The standing ovation that followed felt like it would have happened no matter what we saw, but it was less about this particular show and more about recognizing the feat that has been Mr. Armani’s career and the empire he has built.
While at some points it felt like the collection was stuck between tradition and innovation, formality and intimacy, its best moments overcame these distinctions and delivered a clear vision of men’s dressing that was confident, elegant, and unconstrained.