Two major exhibitions surveying the work of fashion designer Giorgio Armani are currently on view in Milan, the city where he worked and created and where he died three months ago at age 91.
The two exhibitions — entirely different from one another and presented simultaneously — offer a dual and wide-ranging reading of the legacy he forged over five decades, a body of work that went beyond clothing and made both him and his designs part of Italian culture.
17 View gallery
The exhibition 'Armani Privé: 2005-2025 — 20 Years of Haute Couture'
(Photo: Itay Yaacov)
17 View gallery
The exhibition 'Armani Privé: 2005-2025 — 20 Years of Haute Couture'
(Photo: Itay Yaacov)
17 View gallery
The exhibition 'Armani Privé: 2005-2025 — 20 Years of Haute Couture'
(Photo: Itay Yaacov)
"Exhibition can be seen in two ways. On the one hand, it offers immediate gratification for the creator’s ego. On the other, it has educational value — a unique form of testimony granted not only to the public through your work, but above all to young creators: a feeling that endures over time and brings deep satisfaction. The second aspect is the one that interests me,” the designer wrote in his autobiographical book Per Amore, which lends its name to the comprehensive exhibition “Giorgio Armani. Milan, From Love.” The exhibition opened three weeks after his death at the Pinacoteca di Brera in the Brera district of the city where Armani lived until the day he died.
17 View gallery
Giorgio Armani at the spring-summer 2025 haute couture show
(Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
Several kilometers away, at the Armani/Silos complex, home to the Armani Theatre, the fashion house’s dedicated exhibition space, and a comprehensive museum, the exhibition “Armani Privé: 2005-2025 — 20 Years of Haute Couture” has been on view since May. Hundreds of gowns displayed across three floors of the minimalist museum highlight the handcraft, painstaking embroidery, embellishments and complex silhouettes of his designs, while also echoing the red-carpet dresses he created for stars including Cate Blanchett, Demi Moore, Isabelle Huppert, Nicole Kidman and others.
'Armani most fully embodies the character of Milan'
Armani often spoke of his love for Brera, the neighborhood he chose as his home and workplace. In September, about three weeks after his death, a memorial fashion show was held in the grand courtyard of the Pinacoteca di Brera, inaugurated in 1809. The venue also hosted the opening of a comprehensive exhibition marking 50 years of the designer’s work. Armani was responsible for and closely involved in the curatorial vision of both exhibitions
The decision to present his ready-to-wear designs — most dating from the 1980s onward — alongside Italian artworks from the Middle Ages through the 19th century makes a dual statement: It places Armani alongside masters such as Caravaggio, Raphael and Piero della Francesca, and frames his creations as works of art, even when the piece in question is a blue knit shirt from the fall-winter 1985-86 collection.
The impression is that visitors are not being invited to a fashion exhibition, but to experience clothing as another visual language existing alongside painting, sculpture and architecture. The approach also underscores Armani’s status as a designer whose work transcends trends, positioning him as part of the city’s cultural canon, a city he often described as an enduring source of inspiration.
Angelo Crespi, director of the Pinacoteca di Brera, said that “Giorgio Armani represents one of the peaks of Italian creativity, expressed through simplicity and rigor of form, that evolved from the aesthetic to the existential, permeating his lifestyle and his way of working. In this sense, Armani most fully embodies the character of Milan. He is also the clearest and most symbolic expression of Brera’s culture — a unique place in the world where art, research and innovation have coexisted for 500 years.”
The exhibition experience is exhilarating. Even if many of the garments may appear overly accessible or dated — after all, some of the works were innovative in their time, and alongside evening gowns there are plenty of lightweight men’s pieces in linen and silk that could be found in any Armani boutique, the decision to present them alongside works of art creates a powerful visual and cultural impact, and it photographs well for Instagram, too.
Behind the scenes of the world of luxury
The second exhibition is devoted to haute couture and offers a completely different experience. The gowns are displayed with only the season in which they were created, and when a well-known figure wore a particular dress, her name is noted alongside it, without additional red-carpet documentation or sketches. One of the final dresses in the exhibition belongs to Demi Moore, who wore it when she won best actress at this year’s Golden Globe Awards.
17 View gallery
The exhibition 'Armani Privé: 2005-2025 — 20 Years of Haute Couture'
(Photo: Itay Yaacov)
“In my haute couture collections, I express my vision of style and elegance through craftsmanship. Only here am I free to do so without limits,” Armani explained. “My 20 years of haute couture have been an extraordinary and liberating journey. Now I wish to share it with a wider audience and invite them to enter my dream — a dream of gowns woven with imagination and grace. A world unlike any other, given new meaning in this exhibition.”
17 View gallery
The exhibition 'Armani Privé: 2005-2025 — 20 Years of Haute Couture'
(Photo: Itay Yaacov)
The dramatic black lighting highlights the collection of gowns, which are arranged according to aesthetic and conceptual themes, such as a group inspired by Japan, or by color palettes, including red, pink and gold. The decision not to add further details or contextual information may leave some visitors wanting more, but for most of the audience the purely aesthetic experience is sufficient. Both exhibitions were crowded during our visit last week.
17 View gallery
The exhibition 'Armani Privé: 2005-2025 — 20 Years of Haute Couture'
(Photo: Itay Yaacov)
Either way, the exhibition allows for a more intimate and professional experience — a kind of behind-the-scenes look at the world of luxury and at how a design vision is translated into layers of fabric and embroidery that can be examined up close. The exhibition also offers a multisensory experience, with the designer’s Bois d’Encens fragrance accompanying the displays, alongside an original soundtrack created especially for the exhibition by L’Antidote, an Italian sound collective specializing in music for spatial environments.
17 View gallery
The exhibition 'Armani Privé: 2005-2025 — 20 Years of Haute Couture'
(Photo: Itay Yaacov)
The contrast between the two exhibitions is sharp and clear. In Brera, Giorgio Armani is presented in a broad historical and cultural context; at Armani/Silos, visitors encounter Armani as a master designer, immersed in detail and the creative process. One operates on a conceptual and symbolic level, the other on a material and professional one. Together, they complement one another, offering a layered portrait of Armani — the creator who shaped how fashion has been perceived within the cultural world over the past 50 years.
In light of their success, both exhibitions have been extended through May 3, 2026. Advance reservations are recommended to avoid long lines at the entrance.