Chinese Dream Inspires Armani Spring-Summer Collection

Italian couturier Giorgio Armani looked east with a rich, cinematographic display Monday inspired by China.

Armani called the country “a dream” and denied that China’s status as an economic powerhouse had influenced the collection, the spring-summer offering for his haute couture label, Giorgio Armani Prive.

Lean skirt suits in luminous silks, embellished with tassels and appliques dominated the collection. Glossy, second-skin evening gowns, heavy with sequins and beadwork, made up most of the show’s remaining 62 looks.

Pointed shoulders and cuffs on jackets evoked pagoda roofs, while a purple and yellow pantsuit recalled a Chinese martial arts ensemble.

The dresses, in lacquer red and inky black, had a costume-like quality about them. A shift dress in red sequins with black piping was almost crying out to be worn by sculptural Chinese movie star Gong Li.

The models wore severe black bobbed wigs or had their hair swept up into a long thin tower wrapped in black leather. They tottered down the catwalk in the pencil skirts and towering, richly worked heels.

Longtime Armani fan Glen Close hailed the collection as “extraordinary.”

“I’m stunned (by) the pure creativity of it, the whimsy, the fantasy, the shapes,” said the actress, who smiled and nodded approvingly during much of Monday’s presentation.

Asked whether the collection was an overture to the emerging economic superpower, Armani said “there’s no point in bringing China to China.”

“This was a dream, a real spectacle, a film,” he told The Associated Press.

1/26/2009 5:32 PM PARIS (AP)