SHANGHAI — Giorgio Armani is becoming a Shanghai regular.
After visiting the city two years ago to launch his flagship store at Three on the Bund, the designer returned last weekend for the Shanghai opening of “Giorgio Armani: Retrospective” at the Shanghai Art Museum on Saturday.
“My Shanghai experience has been very good up to now, and I hope it will continue through tomorrow,” Armani said at a press conference here. “Shanghai is quickly becoming an important world city. Just walking around on the streets, you see it’s such a dynamic place.”
Armani’s busy Shanghai tour began with a signing of the exhibition catalogue on the evening of March 31 at the Bund store, followed by dinner at T8, a swank fusion restaurant in the converted Twenties lane building complex Xintiandi. It continued the following morning with the press conference and a walkthrough of the exhibition. After lunching at Kathleen’s 5, a restaurant on the fifth floor of the Shanghai Art Museum, Armani visited his shops at Plaza 66 on West Nanjing Road and then proceeded to the adjacent Isetan, in Westgate Mall, for the closing day of an exhibition about Armani fragrances.
The Isetan exhibition marked the launch of Armani fragrances in China and featured information on the scents, samples and a pictographic history of the designer. According to Thibault Villet of L’Oréal China, which manages Armani fragrances in the country, the exhibition attracted 10,000 visitors during its weeklong run. Previously sold only at Armani’s flagship, the fragrance line now has two dedicated counters, opened March 15 and March 20, respectively, at Printemps on Huaihai Road and the Hualian Department Store on East Nanjing Road. Villet added that Armani fragrances will expand to 30 counters in 10 cities this year, while Armani Cosmetics will debut in China sometime in 2007.
The grand opening of “Giorgio Armani: Retrospective” was attended by VIPs, including movie starlet Zhang Ziyi, who recently wore an Armani design to the Academy Awards. They then spilled into the Shanghai Grand Theater for a show of Armani’s spring/summer Privé collection. The show featured a mix of international and Chinese models, including many from Hong Kong, Armani’s previous stop.
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“It’s as if fashion was created for Chinese women; they’re very elegant,” Armani remarked. “They do not have broad shoulders, but they have beautiful shoulders. They do not have big breasts, but they have very good taste, and beautiful legs.”
An Armani spokeswoman said the designer was so pleased with the Chinese models that he is planning to fly some of them out for future Milan shows.
An after-party thrown by Vogue China at the Shanghai Gallery of Art followed the show.
Shanghai marks the final Asian stop of “Giorgio Armani: Retrospective,” which was first held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in 2000. It has since traveled to Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain; the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin; the Royal Academy of Art’s Burlington Gardens space in London; the National Museum of Antiquities at the Baths of Diocletian in Rome, and the Mori Arts Center in Tokyo.
The decision to stage the retrospective here came after Giorgio Armani’s first China visit in 2004, said the Armani spokeswoman, during which he visited the Shanghai Art Museum and fell in love with the space. The museum occupies a Twenties edifice that was originally the Shanghai Racing Club, overlooking the track that was converted into People’s Square in the Fifties. “Two years ago, my understanding of Shanghai came just from pictures and books, and I was so excited to come myself,” the designer said. “I was told that, if I come to China, I will see it is very different from what I expected. Then I visited Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and in Beijing and Shanghai especially, it is developing so fast, it is truly amazing.”
Armani continued that he looked forward to seeing how fashion evolves in China, adding, “I would suggest to Chinese designers to not forgot their traditions, and look at how the Japanese are incorporating traditional elements into modern designs.”