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Giorgio Armani

MILAN, January 20, 2005
By Tim Blanks
Giorgio Armani name-checked Jean Cocteau as inspiration for his latest menswear collection. The renaissance man of the surrealist movement might seem like an unlikely muse for this meticulous designer, but Armani has been intrigued by eccentricity of late. And he appears to be having a lot of fun with it. For this collection, he wasn't at all prepared to rest on his laurels. Instead he was playing games with his silhouette—bagging out the trousers before drawing them in at the ankle, shortening one jacket, hiking the waist on the next and letting it flare out over the hips.

One thing that never changes is the softness of Armani's clothes. His jackets are still molded to the body with all the suppleness of fine-gauge cashmere. He offered a matching cardigan and sweater—a kind of male twinset—as well as jewel-toned velvets for evening, a nod perhaps to Cocteau's dandified glamour. There was also a flamboyant edge to a frog-closed shirt under windowpane checks, jackets with cuffs unbuttoned and turned back to reveal striped silk linings, and a large cape (Jean was a cape man). Even the outerwear was touched by the exotic—leathers and sheepskins had tiger-patterned linings or horn buttons. And the models' aerodynamically swept-back hair recalled Cocteau's own do—just one more tip of Armani's cap to his hero.

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