There's been one clear winner at every single 2024 award show thus far: Giorgio Armani. The Italian luxury label is suddenly dressing everyone, from the entertainment industry's household names to the young ingenues who clutch culture in the palm of their hands.
The questions here are how and why.
You can get a taste for the latter by even briefly skimming the pre- and post-show press releases that Armani blasts out, revealing a breathtaking sample of Hollywood movers and/or shakers.
Take the 2024 Golden Globes, where Armani dressed A-listers like Selena Gomez, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Amanda Seyfried, and even director Martin Scorsese while simultaneously suiting up next-gen icons Charles Melton, Jeremy O. Harris, Finneas.
It's not so much about pushing the fashion envelope — most of the aforementioned folks, dudes especially, wore variations of the award show uniform — as much as covering the widest swath of rarefied ground by enlisting both established and emerging talent.
Armani achieved a similar trick for the 2024 Emmy awards. On one hand, Calista Flockhart, Charlie Day, and Stephen Colbert. On the other, White Lotus stars Beatrice Grannò and Leo Woodall, capped with barely-clothed man of the moment Jeremy Allen White.
At comparably smaller events like the Critics Choice Awards, Armani was omnipresent. There, it dressed a dream blunt rotation of Carey Mulligan, Paul Giamatti, Emily Blunt, and Brendan Fraser.
It was less about the young talent and more about the variety of the names here, which makes sense given that most Critics Choice nominees are established actors.
Armani even owned the National Board of Review Awards with the eonian elegance of the Princess Bride herself, Anne Hathaway.
Certainly, Armani isn't the only big-time fashion player dressing famous folks.
Prada has proven nearly as dominant throughout the 2024 awards season with strong representation both from its elegant womenswear and adroit menswear, while Gucci flexed its influence by snagging three of the biggest names at the Golden Globes: Taylor Swift, Julia Garner, and Ryan Gosling.
Still, no one's competing with Armani's scope or scale — the 50-year-old brand is dressing everyone.
What gives?
We all know that Armani is one of fashion's great names. What we did not know was that Armani was poised to conquer the red carpet.
Even the most fashion-agnostic recognize the house that Giorgio built — especially taking the paninari into consideration, it's not unfair to call him Italy's answer to Ralph Lauren (or vice versa).
Unlike its conglomerate-owned peers, though, Armani mostly keeps to itself.
Sure, it engages in plenty of ad-making, campaign shooting, and celebrity endorsing but Armani's highest-end imprints are the industry's great ascetic ideal, mostly stripped of logos so that the focus is forced onto the exquisite wares alone.
It's too proud to modernize its marketing — Armani only operates one TikTok page: Armani Beauty — and comfortable in the knowledge that its core clientele will always exist. If you build it, they will come and Giorgio Armani, the czar of clean lines, the king of the carrot cut, definitely built it.
Armani's clothes epitomized quiet luxury decades before the term was coined. As the designer himself once told Highsnobiety, his brand has always stood for pared-back sophistication, "timeless elegance" in Armani's words, because "less is better.”
Except when it comes to award shows, apparently.
According to industry scuttlebutt, Armani (the brand) is getting serious about red carpets. The 2024 award season is merely the fruits of Armani's labors, Highsnobiety has learned, following a period of renewed effort in courting VIP clients.
Though Armani has been a red carpet presence as long as there's been red carpets, this newfound ubiquity is a new development.
This is the "how" mentioned above, in relation to the question, "How is Armani dressing so many famous people?" As for the "why," well, that's still up for debate. It's not about the clothes — most of Armani's red carpet looks are event-appropriate and nothing more.
It's not like anyone needs to be convinced that Armani's name is synonymous with luxury or that it's still capable of classic red carpet clothing.
Again, what's most admirable about Armani's 2024 run isn't just that it's dressing a lot of people — though it is also doing that, and in impressive numbers to boot — but that Armani is gamely reaching Hollywood's young guns and old guard.
It's a solid feat and it's not going unnoticed.
