Armani's Successor Is Playing the Long Game, Not a Reinvention

Fashion houses usually keep talking about their founders for decades after they're gone, crediting a successor's work back to whoever built the name. Giorgio Armani's situation is different: he personally saw most of his own projects through to completion, some of which are only surfacing now, and he chose who would carry the house forward before he needed to.

That person is Leo Dell'Orco, who met Armani in the 1970s in Milan's Piazzale Libia gardens after spotting a stray dog that turned out to belong to Armani. Dell'Orco moved from modeling into managerial and creative roles in menswear over the following decades, and this year presented his first Giorgio Armani men's collection in January, followed by Emporio Armani in February, where he works alongside Armani's niece Silvana on womenswear.

His approach leans deliberately toward evolution rather than reinvention. “Right now, the key lies in looking to the past while adding something new,” he says, describing subtle shifts, shoulders, hips, rather than a visible overhaul. On where modern menswear customers actually are: “Today, men want to be elegant, but in a different way,” less bound to old formality, more deliberate about individual choices. He's also begun drawing more directly from Armani's long-unused archive, and floated an interest in outside collaboration: “I really like the Japanese — maybe Comme des Garçons.”

Dell'Orco is candid that the job requires holding two things in tension at once: “You have to figure out whether you want to focus more on image or on the bottom line, without going overboard on either side.” Asked how he'd describe what he's building, he doesn't reach for anything dramatic: “I'd call it the right kind of fashion. I think Giorgio would like what we're creating.”