Giorgio Armani was an iconic Italian clothing designer and is credited with having pioneered red carpet fashion. Since creating the Giorgio Armani label in 1975, Armani became a household name in fashion.
After a brief stint in the military, Armani became a window dresser for a department store in Milan in 1957. He went on to become a seller in the menswear department, learning a lot about the fashion industry. He went on to work as a designer for many labels before launching his own label in 1975.
In the 1980s, he was the first designer to start dressing celebrities for the red carpet. He has dressed stars including Michelle Pfeiffer, Jodie Foster, and Cate Blanchett.
He’s also dressed countless leading men and created suits for The Dark Knight, American Gigolo, The Wolf of Wall Street, and many others.
He was considered to be one of the most important designers and has designed many of Lady Gaga‘s stage outfits, including those worn on her record-breaking Monster Ball Tour and Born This Way Ball Tour.
As of 2015, according to The Advocate, Armani became the world’s richest openly LGBT person with a net worth of $7.3 billion.
Armani was known for being notoriously private about his life and was often coy when asked about his sexual orientation. But in a 2000 interview with Vanity Fair, Armani was refreshingly blunt about his past romances, stating,
I have had women in my life. And sometimes men.