As young Armani fans mourn loss of their favourite designer, shoppers hunt for vintage Armani

NEW YORK – Ms Kathleen Sorbara was on her way to the airport on the morning of Sept 4 when she suddenly received a barrage of text messages.

Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, whose labels can be found on the racks at her namesake vintage store Sorbara’s, had

died at the age of 91

. “The store group chat was like, ‘Oh my God, Armani’s dead,’” she said. “I was so sad.”

Ms Sorbara, 30, is one of many young collectors who became interested in Armani long after his heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, contributing to a recent Armani-aissance fuelled by nostalgia, social media and TikTok trends such as “quiet luxury”.

They are of a generation whose parents wore Armani clothes, maybe they had a bottle of Acqua di Gio in their high school locker. In the last decade, though, they have been able to invest in their own Armani pieces on resale sites such as eBay and The RealReal. It is a testament to the designer’s timeless designs, which still feel modern today.

According to eBay’s trend report from May, Armani was the most-bought luxury brand in the United Kingdom and Italy.

By Sept 4 mid-afternoon, as tributes from dedicated Armani archive accounts and celebrities like American television personality Martha Stewart flooded Instagram, searches for “Armani” on The RealReal increased by 212 per cent compared with the day before, said a representative from the company. On e-commerce company Depop, the increase was 288 per cent.

On second-hand fashion app Vestiaire Collective, users across Europe listed their Giorgio Armani pieces for sale on Sept 5, including a black 1990s silk blazer for £245 (S$425) and a leather and rabbit fur jacket from 2002 for £571.

Long-lasting appeal

Ms Sorbara was around 19 and working as a fashion model in New York when she first started collecting vintage Armani. She was drawn to the gender-fluidity and understated sex appeal of his pieces.

Thanks to their long-lasting quality, she was able to build a simple, elegant and affordable capsule wardrobe of V-neck sweaters and pleated trousers.

When she eventually opened her first vintage store in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Williamsburg, Chickee’s, in 2019, she stocked so much of the designer’s work that customers would walk in and joke: “Did you buy out an old Armani store?”

From Emporio Armani to Armani Exchange, the high volume of products that Armani produced during his lifetime makes his work more accessible today – and thrilling to hunt for. But the holy grails may cost you.

“It’s getting really pricey and increasingly hard to get because of the demand,” said Mr Louis Proteau, 31, owner of a vintage store in Paris called 24Process.

Shoppers his age and younger – mostly men, but some women – often come into the shop looking for rare vintage Armani, either for themselves or because they are stylists and designers seeking references.

He declined to share specific numbers but said some Armani pieces had reached several thousand euros in price.

“We all finally understood that he was the original,” Mr Proteau explained, referring specifically to Armani’s signature oversized silhouette, which has recently come back into fashion.

After seeing a double-breasted Armani blazer with a shawl collar from the 1980s at Ebreo, a vintage store in Brooklyn, designer Nick Williams, 34, went hunting for something similar on eBay.

What he found inspired the relaxed Sumi-dyed canvas suit in his spring-summer 2025 Small Talk Studio collection, which he has worn to both weddings and work in the garment district.

More than anyone, Armani “bridged the gap between formal wear and sportswear in a way that I think a lot of men’s designers are trying to emulate these days”, Mr Williams said.

For the 2025 Golden Globes, American actress and star of award-winning series The Bear (2022 to present) Ayo Edebiri was styled by Danielle Goldberg in a custom suit with a wide lapel and exaggerated shoulders.

According to a post in the 29-year-old’s Instagram Stories, her look was partly inspired by the grey men’s Armani suit Hollywood star Julia Roberts had worn to the ceremony in 1990, five years before Edebiri was born.

“What he did over the course of his life is being referenced over and over and over again,” Ms Sorbara said of Armani. “My job is to give people that reference. Like, you don’t have to shop Lemaire, you can just buy the real thing.”

Well, that is, if someone else is willing to give it up. After receiving numerous direct messages about a military-inspired jacket from an Armani men’s collection in the early 1980s, Mr Proteau decided he was not ready to part with it just yet. “I doubt I’ll find another one like it,” he said.

From a hard sell to high demand

On Sept 4 evening, Ms Sorbara happened to host a book event with Mr Gene Pressman, a third-generation member of the Barneys New York department store family, whose father Fred is credited with introducing Armani to the American market.

“When we brought Armani to this country, for a few years, it was a very hard sell,” Mr Pressman said, joking at one point that he sounded like an elder.

In the crowd was Mr Jalil Johnson, 26, who wore a vintage suede Armani jacket – a “shacket”, as he called it – that he bought on eBay for around US$100 (S$128). He also carried a Bottega Veneta clutch bag reminiscent of Lauren Hutton’s from American Gigolo, a 1980 film starring Richard Gere, whom Armani famously designed the costumes for.

“I screamed this morning when I saw the news,” Mr Johnson said, adding that his first thought was, “everything’s going to go up in price now”.

Mr Ammar Boulai, who runs luxury second-hand menswear boutique Chez Ammar in Paris, said he would not be surprised to see an uptick in demand for Armani suits from the 1970s and 1980s, on the back of the current trend for retro styles with wide trousers and fluid fabrics.

“Four or five years ago, these 1980s style suits were impossible to sell. Now, they are really in vogue, but impossible to find,” he added.

“It’s hard to tell how much is in stock and will re-enter the market. Armani produced a lot, had many sub-brands, so there must be a lot out there. Maybe people will open their drawers now.” NYTIMES, REUTERS