Armani Privé: An Ikat collection for the Oscars

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jan 22, 2020

​One of the key arguments for attending the haute couture shows in Paris in January is that one can get a first-hand look, a sneak preview, at what movie stars may be wearing at Oscar time one month later.

That’s doubly true of Armani Privé, seeing Giorgio Armani’s impressive track record of dressing Oscar winners, and hundreds of people attending the Academy Awards.
 
Even if it was hard to think of sunny California on a chilly Tuesday night in France, as the temperature plunged below zero. Though with a front row that included Reese Witherspoon, Juliette Binoche and Guillaume Canet, prize giving could not be forgotten.

Giorgio opened powerfully with some really snazzy tailoring, Ottoman silk jackets finished with stone-colored crystals or silk jacquard boleros in his fetish zig zag pattern; all paired with faille pants or tulle trousers cut like elongated jodhpurs. A masterly display by fashion’s greatest living tailor, made more charming by the abstract floral motif prints of many pants. Exotic yet authoritative.

This season, Armani concentrated the majority of his collection around the Ikat, riffing subtly through the pattern's many variations; from Indonesian tie-dye to tighter squared bond Ikat Samarkand versions, to double Ikats from the Indian subcontinent.
 
"Ikat is part of whom Armani is. I used a few examples in a show way back in the 80's and it's always been a fabric that I have loved, though rarely used as much as today," said Armani, before posing in the backstage with his Hollywood visitors.
 
All given an Asian twist with the chopped-off Geisha hairstyles and mini songkok Malaysian caps. Thoroughly opulent and happily a tad too much, given the extreme rigor one associates with Armani.
 
Finishing nearly everything with bugle beading, crystals, jet and mini baubles. At times a little too much so, since there were so many strands it looked complicated for the models to even sit down.

Backed up on the soundtrack by Musettesʼs flamenco drama of Recuerdos de la Alhambra made for a bold and colorful fashion statement. And ideal choices, for a suave starlet next month in Hollywood.