SHE wore black velvet, blacker then velvet was the night this season at Giorgio Armani AW16. This plush choice of cloth was at the pinnacle of the Italian designer’s latest collection, which lavished all attention upon the woven tufted fabric, chicly Armani-fying it in an assortment of not-too-dissimilar looks.
Presenting most of his velvet creations as “sweat-clothes”, or clothes that you can move around in, AW16 had a certain looseness to it all, supported in some instances by tailoring in muddy shades of grey that brought aspects of brutalist architecture to a splendid sartorial showing. This was soon played off by smudges of chalkboard pastels which would eventually gain definition morphing into doodled florals. An interesting choice for AW16, but pieced together accordingly and entirely on point by Armani when the dominant hue is based around fuzzy dark velvets.
The lithe jump-around garments later included some demure tracksuits with line-upon-line of modest fringing, which when rendered in the mousiness of the dark velvet, worked towards unrivalled elegance. The heavy use of almost ceremonial blacker than black colour ways continued to the end. Many a designer has oft been accused of sticking adamantly to this hue for fear of making any gaudy missteps but Armani is a designer, as we’ve seen previous seasons, not afraid of heavy doses of colour.
Instead, AW16 saw an iconic designer bring black out to its maximum potential on the runway. The climax of the heavy focus on the absence of colour was an effortless velvet jumpsuit featuring plenty of skin on show. Held up by a black velvet beret and cinched around the neck by an outpouring cape of black silk organza it was Giorgio Armani as a designer incarnate – opulently minimal.
by Liam Feltham
Images courtesy of Giorgio Armani