Few surnames evoke both fashionable or Italy and Armani. The billionaire designer and businessman has died this Thursday at the age of 91, as confirmed by the Armani group through a statement. Armani reached the honeys of success in international fashion and, with his death, leaves as legacy an authentic business empire. Nacid in Piacenza, a medium city located between Milan and Genoa, Armani was the little one with three brothers. At work it was meticulous and diligent. Training doctor, in 1973 he opened his first fashion design study in the city of Milan. Two years later, Armani officially created together with his then partner Sergio Galeotti the company to which his last name endowed in name and that in return so many revenues gave him throughout his life. What began as a modest fashion design firm in northern Italy, ended up becoming a company that in its catalog of services and products includes hotels, discos, makeup, perfumes, restaurants, furniture, sweets and flowers. On the official Likedin website, the Armani group details that it directly works to 10,500 workers, which has 12 production plants and that it has 2,704 stores distributed in 60 countries. Despite its success and renown, the fashion group has not been immune to the luxury crisis that has affected other great fortunes of the sector, such as Bernard Arnault, LVMH majority owner, and the Pinault family, Kering. According to the latest available results of the Armani Group, in 2024 the company obtained revenues of 2.3 billion euros, 5% less. Its benefit before tax was 74.5 million euros, with a 66% drop compared to 2023 that gave an account of the challenging environment that fashion in general in recent times and luxury in particular, with the backdrop of the macroeconomic uncertainty and the deceleration of demand in China. The Armani group had the peculiarity that, despite having a brand of so much renown, it was of the few companies of the luxury sector of the luxury sector that followed completely in the hands of their founder. This turned Giorgio Armani into a very rich man. According to Bloomberg’s data, its heritage was currently amounted to about 8,000 million euros, the sixth fortune of Italy. Giorgio Armani battled for decades to maintain the independence of the fashion empire that it founded, while other Italian icons such as Gucci and Fendi have been absorbed by large luxury chains. It will be his heirs who decide what will hold the future. As a guardian of his empire during his career, Armani declared Bloomberg News last year that he would not rule out the company’s IPO or a sale to a larger group once he left the company. «The independence of large groups can still be a driving value for the Armani group in the future, but I don’t feel I can rule out anything,» he said. «What has always characterized the success of my work is the ability to adapt to new times.» The Italian designer and entrepreneur created an expanding business with various fashion lines, as well as long -term licenses attributed to L’Oréal for its beauty and fragrance products, among which Acqua Di Gio stands out, EsSilorluxotica is already for its brand glasses, while Fossil Group sells Emporio Armani watches. In October 2024, Armani celebrated a parade that coincided with the inauguration in New York of the Armani building in Madison Avenue, 12 floors, which includes two stores, a restaurant and armani apartments. The project was developed together with Armani’s team of architects. «Currently, I do not foresee an acquisition by a large luxury conglomerate,» Armani told Bloomberg last year. «But, as I said, I do not want to rule out anything a priori, since it would be a little entrepreneurial action.» Without children who transmit their fortune, the question that is not yet clear at all is how exactly its inheritance will be distributed. In the last interview that Armani granted, published last weekend in the Financial Times newspaper, the tycoon spoke of how he planned to convey his empire. «My succession plans consist of a gradual transition of the responsibilities that I have always assumed in a very close and personal way, giving them to Leo Dell’orco, the members of my family and all the workers of the group,» he said then. On the operation of the company, all eyes point to what has been their right hand for years: Dell’orco Panto. For his fortune and the brand, the names of his two nieces, Silvana and Roberta Armani, as well as that of his nephew Andrea Camerana, also enter the pools. Armani, who maintained the responsibility of supervising the entire creative direction of his megacorporation, said in the interview with the FT that he was clear that hard work was essential for success, but at the same time, he admitted that there are better things to spend time. «My only regret in life is having spent too many hours working and not having spent more time with my friends and family,» he acknowledged leaving with his words a valuable advice.
Italian justice intervention
The Armani brand has been historically linked to sophistication and luxury, but behind the glamorous spotlight It had been producing since 2017. The judicial sentence reported how Armani had subcontracted the production of bags, belts and leather items to two companies. Subsequently, these two companies had also in turn outsourced production in four Chinese companies that had workshops located on the outskirts of Milan. These Italochinos workshops, always according to the sentence, paid their workers between two and three euros per hour in days that lasted an average of 10 hours a day, and that, in some cases, extended seven days a week. As reported by Reuters, the articles produced in these workshops were sold to Armani’s subcontractors for 93 euros and, subsequently, were resorted to Armani for 250. In stores prices reached 1,800 euros. The investigation was framed within a broader operation in which Italy tried to pursue labor abuses in the supply chains of their fashion companies. In February of this year, Justice raised the special administration to which the company was submitting to considering that its problems had already been resolved in this part of the supply chain. «Throughout the last 10 months, the company has adopted all the necessary changes in its organizational and supplier control model,» concluded the Milan Court in a statement.
