Fashion: After Armani’s death: What’s next with the fashion house?

After the death of the fashion designer Giorgio Armani, it is still unclear how the brand of the same name continues. Until the end, the Italian kept full control over the billion -dollar company – both in creative and entrepreneurial terms. Armani was reluctant to talk about afterwards. During his lifetime, he failed to clearly commit himself to a successor – he did not have his own children.

But shortly before his death, he spoke to the “Financial Times” in his possibly last interview about the future of his fashion person: “My plans for the successor provide for a step -by -step transition of the tasks that I have always perceived myself to those who are closest to me.” Among other things, he called his companion Leo Dell’orco.

He also mentioned his family. According to this, his two nieces Roberta and Silvana, the daughters of his already deceased brother Sergio, as well as his sister Rosanna and her son Andrea, could lead the brand together with Dell’orco. “I want the successor to happen organically and that there is no jerky moment,” Armani continued to “Financial Times”.

Takeover offers always rejected

Last year he told the “Corriere della Sera” that he had recently increased “somewhat more persistent” approaches from potential external investors to his company. However, he repeatedly refused all takeover offers with reference to his own independence.

Armani was one of the most important fashion designers in the world for decades. After the first years in which he worked for other houses, he founded the Giorgio Armani Spa in the mid -1970s with his partner Sergio Galeotti. That was the nucleus of a group that is worth many billions today. The money initially came through fashion, then also through accessories and hotels. After Galeotti’s early death in 1985, the company only belonged to Armani.

There will be more clarity about the plans for the successor to the brand prepared before his death. According to Italian media reports, ARMANS TESTAME is then to be opened.

Armani died on Thursday at the age of 91. For health reasons, he had not been able to take part in the big views in Milan and Paris for the first time in June and July. According to its fashion house, the coffin with the body of Armani is to be laid out in Milan from Saturday. At Armanis, the funeral ceremony will take place in private form.