The Armani case: unique and repeatable

In 2015, we celebrated 40 years of Giorgio Armani Spa with a book and a series of events and content, celebrating and tracing the history of a business case, as the Americans would say, which is exceptional. In 2025, we celebrate 50 years of an enterprise, with the founder firmly at the helm of a constantly moving flagship (Giorgio, the person, owns 100 percent of the capital of the company, which is still private, that is, not listed on any stock exchange).

The purpose of our latest book on Mr. Armani is not to describe historical events already known to the public, nor is it to provide gossip and personal details about the past, present, and future of the company or character.

Instead, the reflection of this work focuses on what is unrepeatable and, at the same time, what is replicable, with the hope that it may be of help for budding designers, business-men and -women, and the general public to understand how an Italian excellence is born and develops.

The business case 

We want to give this work a deliberately ‘business’ slant, going to analyze the famous ‘4 P’s’ of Armani’s marketing mix, and trying to evince the Giorgio Armani businessman’s handbook, so that it can be of good use for those who want to do business or for those who are, simply, enthusiasts. What will emerge is a profile of CEO, and creative leader, in strong discontinuity with what fashion has become in the last two decades.

Armani was born as a great innovator, and we believe that his greatest and most continuous innovation, so evident precisely in the times we are living in, was not to fall into the traps of any post-globalization business. Fashion, on the other hand, has always been two or three lengths beyond the status quo, or rather an industry that has it in its DNA to be ahead of its time. Or perhaps not anymore?

The last two decades have profoundly changed fashion, of course, and for many reasons. Fashion is a strategic business for Italy and many other countries, and it takes strong business acumen and financial strength to survive. There is no doubt about that. What is most striking is that, perhaps, we have ended up turning fashion into a business like any other, with the same metrics, logics and expectations. In a globalized or post-globalized world, where everything is measured and measurable, everything is fragile, and where the financial bottom line is the only one that matters, is there still room for a business whose voice is out of the chorus?

Unique and replicable at the same time 

It is with this question that we go to explore the Armani universe, which is not just made up of fashion shows and collections, but of people, communities, cities, lifestyles and stories, all of them long-term. The Armani Group is strong with sales more than 2.45 billion euros, and with double-digit profitability (the figures are for 2023). It is not the fastest growing company or the most profitable. The LVMH, Kering or Richemont groups, for example, have higher growth rates and EBITDA levels, if we look at even just the last ten years. The financial performance of the Armani group is intentional and is the result of the philosophy and business model intended by the founder.

The company is perhaps one of the few Italian excellences to have surpassed the billion-euro turnover threshold globally (Armani would be a ‘mega-brand’, in marketing jargon), and its uniqueness lies in the fact that it is still private and in the hands of one person, 100%, for 50 years. It is unique in the world.

The Armani handbook is consistent in time, and revolutionary in a today where we are losing the time to mature a critical consciousness, or even to transcend the here and now. Ours is a today where a flat and immediate consensus, or success, is all that matters. Let me be clear, this is not just a communications issue. Giorgio Armani belongs to a small group of fashion visionaries, ranging from Coco Chanel to Karl Lagerfeld to Yves Saint Laurent, to name but a few. We have used the term ‘visionary’ precisely because it is the liberating vision of man and woman that drives his work and success. The longevity of the Armani model is, however, unique in history.

Here, then, are the questions that must accompany us along this small volume. What can we only admire about him, as his alone, and therefore unique and unrepeatable? On the other hand, what secrets can we glean and ‘steal’, to ensure that Italian fashion continues to be an engine of innovation, and above all, of social change?

Fashion is among those few human activities, on par with music or art, capable of quickly creating bridges and alliances between humans, of quickly establishing a dialogue, which manages to go beyond differences of language, culture, country. Fashion is contagious. It is almost like a weed. It is constantly seeking to redefine context and identity of the human, reminding us that we can be other, or become other. Let’s look at Armani’s business case, to appreciate its uniqueness-which is in its unrelenting focus on striving for perfection-but also to understand how to build a business that will live long, always keeping alive why it exists. “Growth means nothing more than adapting the perfect world of ideas to the imperfect world of reality. It takes a lifetime to do it, but eventually you succeed,” Giorgio Armani reminds us.

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