Black tie dress codes can plunge even the most seasoned fashion editors into the depths of despair. If the thought of swishing into galas wearing gowns heavy with sequins and social angst fills you with glee then you, my friend, are in the minority. Spare a thought, then, for the attendees of Giorgio Armani’s spring/summer 2025 show – the first mainline presentation the 90-year-old designer has ever staged outside of Milan – who were greeted with the loaded words “black tie” on their gilded invitations. The biggest challenge? The 649 other industry insiders navigating the same quagmire of embellishment and acceptance.
It turns out that reading the subtext of “black tie” is easy when your host is the progenitor of understated elegance. Instead of considering what her seat mates Brooke Shields, Brie Larson and Lily Allen might choose from the current edit, Gemma Chan and her stylist Rebecca Corbin-Murray delved into the Armani archives in search of a look that ticked the “effortlessly exquisite” box. They landed on a crystal-flecked waistcoat featuring a mandarin collar and a black silk velvet skirt that proved any archaic notions around eveningwear demanding a floor-length silhouette are there to be dismantled. Suzanne Kalan diamond drop earrings and classic Aquazzura low-heel pumps showed that you won’t be ousted at events for not wearing costume jewellery or stilettos either.
“I felt chic, glamorous and ready for a night out in NYC!” Chan says via text the morning after the night before. “The outfit was also very comfortable, which is always a nice surprise.” The 41-year-old Londoner, who has just wrapped a film called Josephine with Channing Tatum in San Francisco, does have some non-negotiables when steering her way through the complex course of celebrity dressing: water and chips. “During glam, I put on a chilled playlist, drink tea and eat French fries as you never know when you’ll next be able to eat,” she advises, in addition to a post-flight lymphatic drainage massage if she’s flown into somewhere fabulous but long-haul, and thus murderous for cankles.
Gemma, whose earliest memories of Giorgio Armani – like many – are rooted in Richard Gere’s unstructured tailoring in 1980’s American Gigolo, was too busy snapping the impossibly sleek outerwear (the chocolate-brown trench is now topping her mental wishlist) to take note of how Hollywood had interpreted Mr Armani’s front-row requests. “For me, the brand has always been synonymous with quiet luxury,” muses the aspiring producer and UNICEF ambassador, who will journey to Copenhagen this week to visit the humanitarian fund’s supply division there. “There was an ease and a sophistication to the collection that seems quintessentially Armani.”
Indeed, the businessman himself, who rarely gives interviews and prefers the work to do the talking, zeroed in on the pillars of his brand, rather than the theatrics of the Manhattan extravaganza: “Clothing should enhance the wearer’s personality,” he told Vogue Runway. “Tailoring does that perfectly because it’s timeless. While it may seem tied to the past, I believe tailoring is the future.”
Like Chan, who is already on her next adventure while sending dispatches from an evening hobnobbing with Micheal Ward and Meghann Fahy, the challenge of event dressing looks much smaller when thinking about the bigger picture. Failing that, a red lip (Armani Beauty’s is excellent, obviously) works as the chicest kind of personal armour.
