Fashion legend Giorgio Armani is anything but the new kid on the block: At 90 years old, he’s seen his eponymous label expand over the past 50 years. Still he’s anything but jaded about the glittering locales he visits for work, including a recent trip to New York City to present his latest collection and to celebrate the opening of both the Upper East Side restaurant bearing his name and a new Madison Avenue Armani boutique and residences.
“The beauty of New York is that it’s always changing,” he tells Vanity Fair. “It remains the same in essence, yet it constantly transforms, so each visit surprises me. Marginal neighborhoods become trendy and forgotten areas are rediscovered. Nowhere else in the world has this vitality—this sense of an ever-evolving organism that is alive, unstoppable, and electrifying.”
Though the unveiling and celebration of his own creations were the centerpiece of the trip, Armani was humble when speaking of the Spring/Summer ‘25 presentation and new boutique, calling it “extremely powerful and emotional to see my spaces and creations brought to life and enjoyed by the public. It’s the truest and most beautiful reward for hard work.”
From the hands-on fittings with the models ahead of the presentation at the Park Avenue Armory to a ribbon-cutting for the store and residences on Madison Avenue and the 5th Avenue window display at Bergdorf Goodman, Armani shared his snapshots from his busy New York City itinerary, his first time returning to the city since 2016, with VF.
Though he doesn’t call the city home, Armani said that every trip to New York inspires and motivates him. “This time, New York’s relentless pace truly thrilled me. It reinforced my commitment to keep moving forward and to embrace new challenges without hesitation,” he says.
It’s a city like no other, filled with people like no other.
“What makes New Yorkers fashionable is their disregard for conventional rules,” he says. “They do as they please with confidence, and that’s incredibly inspiring. New Yorkers don’t follow other people—they use clothes as a bold and individual form of personal expression. If elegance is about being remembered, not just noticed, New York is full of people to remember. And some of them manage to get noticed, too.”
Ahead, enjoy exclusive photos of Armani’s busy weekend in New York, a fashionable flurry of activity.
