A decades-long partnership has evolved into an authentic cultural synergy where fashion and entertainment merge, reflecting elegance, power, sensuality, and identity. This is the alliance between the world of cinema and Giorgio Armani, who, beyond the red carpet where he has dressed legions of stars, has designed costumes for some two hundred films. These include works by renowned Italian directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci (“The Last Emperor”), Giuseppe Tornatore (“A Pure Formality”), and Paolo Sorrentino (“The Great Beauty”).
It all began in 1980 with Paul Schrader’s “American Gigolo.” Richard Gere, in the role of the young escort Julian Kaye, wears Armani suits that are not merely clothes but a style statement: soft, unpadded shoulders, neutral palettes, and fluid fabrics that reveal the body. The protagonist’s wardrobe defines the plot. The iconic noir sequence where a shirtless Kaye chooses jackets and folds shirts on a bed cemented the international debut of the Armani look a mere five years after the brand’s founding.
As Armani himself stated in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 twenty-minute documentary “Made in Milan,” cinema had always been his true love. He had wanted to be a director but instead found himself designing costumes.
“American Gigolo,” in which he deconstructed the classic, rigid, and square formal suit, was the start of the adventure. The Italian designer became Hollywood’s reference point for portraying elegance and authority on the big screen. After 1984’s “Streets of Fire,” Giorgio dressed Sean Connery, Kevin Costner, and Robert De Niro in Brian De Palma’s 1987 film “The Untouchables,” transporting the elegance of his fashion into 1930s Prohibition-era America—a period he admitted was “as remote as possible from his vision as a stylist.”
Then, in 1990, came Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” where Armani’s suits captured the dark side of New York’s criminal underworld, portrayed by mafia gangsters Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta, and Robert De Niro. In “Miami Vice,” the light jacket worn over a t-shirt by Don Johnson created another model for casual dressing.
Armani was also behind the wardrobe choices for Cate Blanchett, a CBS journalist in the 2015 political docudrama “Truth,” and for Jodie Foster in the 2013 sci-fi film “Elysium.” Set in 2154 on a space station, the futuristic clothes for the villainous Defense Secretary Jessica Delacourt are, true to Armani’s form, timeless.
He designed costumes that were always part of the narrative: from the sober refinement of “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” (2011) to the exhibited luxury worn by Leonardo DiCaprio two years later in “The Wolf of Wall Street.” The white tuxedo in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds,” worn by Brad Pitt’s character (Aldo Raine) on a premiere red carpet where he intends to assassinate Adolf Hitler, was inevitable. The goal was to create a flashy, showy look that would stand out among other dark attire, highlighting Pitt’s character’s role as an undercover Italian director.
Subsequent collaborations included dressing two Batmans from Christopher Nolan’s trilogy. After 2008’s “The Dark Knight,” where Armani dressed Christian Bale with a special “Giorgio Armani for Bruce Wayne” label to translate the character’s dual nature (refined businessman and dark vigilante), came 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises.” For it, he designed more clothes for Wayne, in addition to pieces for Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) and Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman).
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