Fifty years on from its founding, Giorgio Armani feels as precise and expansive as ever. From the beginning, Mr Armani was one of fashion’s great risk-takers, but not for chasing the sensationalism of the time – think Vivienne Westwood’s nipple T-shirts, produced from 1974. Rather, Armani’s approach was risky because he refused to shock. For someone who entered the fashion ring relatively late, at 41 years of age in 1975, he committed to building his own design vernacular in slow, deliberate strokes: a softer shoulder here, a muted palette there, an insistence that clothes should liberate the body rather than armour it. The risk was radical in its restraint. Yet success was built season after season, as he offered women a way of dressing that allowed fluidity, sophistication and comfort – clothes to live in.

To honour that legacy, we return to the source. TANK invited Alessandra Facchinetti, an Italian designer whom Mr Armani himself publicly admired for her elegance and sensibility, to reimagine key Armani archive looks through her own eye. In the images that follow, Facchinetti presents a contemporary vision of Giorgio Armani codes: the slouched authority of a jacket, the liquid fall of mesh, transparent crystal, and clean tuxedo dressing. “His essential and pure design allows people to be themselves,” she says. “The clothes don’t impose an identity; they allow one to emerge. He removes, but he never erases.” Drawn from decades of his work and spliced with the present, the result is less a retrospective than a live conversation in the Armani language – a dialogue between two designers who share the conviction that style is something you live inside. She constructs an homage to the visual language and stylistic principles that Mr Armani established, as elements in a story still unfolding.

From the beginning of his career, Armani understood film as both a creative laboratory and a global shop window. In 1980, he dressed Richard Gere in American Gigolo, propelling the louche lounge suit into global stardom. He designed or supplied costumes for over 200 films over the course of his career, working repeatedly with Martin Scorsese on the big but intelligent American movies of the 20th and 21st centuries – Goodfellas (1990), Inglourious Basterds (2009), and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), movies about status and style.

That first movie is particularly relevant, as it captures the era that came just after Armani’s debut and its permanent transformation of the economic landscape. The 1980s were the age of corporate finance and mass consolidation, in which brands were bought up and melded into luxury groups. Providing a masterclass in Italian disdain, Mr Armani told Reuters that he had been approached by German multi-conglomerate Beiersdorf in 2005 about a potential merger, but had “been too distracted by other projects” to think about it. Armani, almost uniquely, remained a proprietor-owned business to the end – like an elegant restaurant that keeps its candles lit and tables full, as the streets around it are chomped up by interchangeable chains.

To call Armani a “language” is to acknowledge its grammar: tailoring, the formal tuxedo, transparency, flou, texture

Like that image, perhaps, Armani’s design language is pure Italy. “Style is part of Italian culture, style is everywhere,” Facchinetti says. “What Armani did was to take those existing style codes and give them a clear, personal language. No one else has translated Italian style with the same consistency and clarity.” Through those endless calibrations of cut and colour, his vision became the lens through which Italian elegance was exported around the world.

Facchinetti knows what it means to be seen as a bearer of Italian style. When she debuted her first Valentino haute couture collection in Paris, the Italian papers also noted the reaction of a very particular spectator. In Corriere della Sera, the image is almost cinematic: Mr Armani rising at the end, crossing the aisle to embrace Facchinetti “a scena aperta”, calling her “Unica donna a fare alta moda” (The only woman to do high fashion). The image reveals a rare moment of open homage in a system where, as the journalist drily notes, “capita raramente che nel sistema ci si omaggi, specie fra italiani […] Orgoglio tricolore? E finalmente” (“It rarely happens that in the system we pay homage to each other, especially among Italians [...] Tricolour pride? Finally.”) Armani’s applause did more than bless a young Italian designer: it placed her firmly within the tradition he had spent his life defining. Until this day, that moment stands as the only couture fashion show he attended apart from his own.

To call Armani a “language” is to acknowledge its grammar: tailoring, the formal tuxedo, transparency, flou, texture. These are the recurring nouns and verbs that stretch from the designer’s earliest collections to the looks kept in the archive today – to feel the fabrics from decades ago is to understand what quality is. What has always set Armani apart is not just these codes, but his refusal to dilute them when trend cycles demanded noise. “I believe risk was always part of his thinking, staying true to the same vision over decades,” Facchinetti reflects. “At a time when change was often expected, he chose consistency, and never adjusted his point of view to follow the moment. That loyalty to himself was his real risk.” Quickly, fidelity hardened into power.

Years later, walking into the Armani archive to prepare for this shoot, Facchinetti wanted to keep that sense of clarity. “When I entered the archive, I wanted my approach to be as simple and genuine as possible,” she explains. She followed the impressions that had stayed with her since those early years – the looseness of a trouser, the way a tuxedo jacket seems to hover rather than grip, the subtle tension of transparency against covered skin – but tested them against the present:

“I was instinctively guided by very strong memories of his work that stayed with me over the years, but I wanted to see how they could exist in the present. The idea was to show how powerful his design is: pieces from different decades can be worn by different characters and still feel right. That’s part of his legacy.”

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the interpretation that follows is how naturally vintage and current seasons fold into one another. “What Armani teaches through his work is coherence,” Facchinetti notes.

His codes are so clear that they stay recognisable over time, without feeling repetitive, connecting past and present. Throughout his career, he managed to remain different while always being himself. That balance is what makes his language translate so naturally across seasons and decades, immediately recognisable as the Armani style.

In our era of berserk code-clashing and rapid trend cycles, the stillness and certainty at the centre of Armani’s brand is an oasis – and one that survives him. .

Hair: Carlo Ruggiu / Make-up: Letizia Morlè / Production: Roberta Ripamonti  / Casting: Sabrina Mastrangelo / Digital technician: Andrea Leonetti  / Styling assistant: Maria Anita Pompili / Production assistant: Camilla Mecagni  / Lighting assistant: Andrea Luna  / Models: Carlo, Mathias, Eugene, Tea, Gaia, Angelica, Lucky at Street People Casting