Industry News
Giorgio Armani celebrated his Armani Neve (‘neve’ meaning snow in Italian) winter fashion line with a three-day event, culminating in an outdoor fashion show in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The fashion show took place opposite the Winter Olympic stadium in St. Moritz on a purpose-built catwalk in the snow.  St. Moritz has been host to the Winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948 and the fashion designer has close connections to the region as he owns a house in La Punt.
Armani launched the Neve fashion line in the 90s but it was later discontinued. It was successfully relaunched four years ago, after the successful launch of the EA7 winter sports line. The Neve line is the high-end winter fashion line within the Armani house, which seeks to combine street fashion, aprés and sportswear. The result is a luxurious yet understated fashion line, predominately in muted colors, with carefully chosen color accents in blue and green for those who prefer a brighter color palette.
The three-day event included a formal dinner at Badrutt’s Palace and the guest list featured international celebrities, fashionistas, and influencers. Guests included the famous French actor Lucas Bravo, known for his role as French chef Gabriel in Netflix’s ‘Emily in Paris’ TV series, French actress Melanie Laurent, who starred in many Hollywood blockbusters like Tarantino’s ‘Inglorious Basterds’ and Italian model and actress Eva Riccobono, who has been walking for Armani for many years.
Guests were whisked off on horse carriages on the first night and taken to a cozy dinner in the mountains above St. Moritz in the area of Salastrains, which is near the FIS Alpine World Cup finish line. Giorgio Rocca, Olympic skier and owner of the Giorgio Rocca ski school, was on hand the next morning to guide the 300 guests across the Corviglia ski area. Giorgio Rocca has long been collaborating with Giorgio Armani on the EA7 line of ski wear. His ski instructors are dressed entirely in EA7 uniforms.
While the three-day-event and fashion show were full of glamor and luxury, it is important to point out that the Italian company banned all single-use plastics for the event and stipulated that all suppliers had to recycle and reuse materials from the show, as evidenced by the catwalk and seating being entirely made from local wood. Furthermore, the Armani Group made a donation to the ‘MortAlive’ initiative which is aiming to save the Swiss glaciers by covering them in artificial snow.
The 88-year-old fashion designer started the house of Armani in 1975 at the age of 41. He built an empire from scratch, after many years of soul searching, which included stints in medicine, the military, and as a window dresser at La Rinascente, an Italian department store in Milan. He joined the Italian fashion house Nino Cerruti in his thirties and found his calling. The house of Armani now consists of several fashion and interior design lines, such as Emporio Armani, Armani Exchange, and Armani Casa. The Armani Group has an annual turnover of USD 1.6 billion and the winter sports line has been a massive success, having sold € 500,000 of clothes in the first week alone. Armani has a long-standing relationship with sports, including winter sports, having equipped the Italian national ski team and Olympic teams for years.
