Drifting Away with Emporio Armani

MILAN, Italy — The summer breeze that blew threw Giorgio Armani's Emporio collection brought a whiff of faraway places. Faded tones of pink, peach, cinnamon and sea foam in washed linen and delicate organza hinted at a dreamy otherness. Funny how the notion of escape has become so much more pointed in Armani's collections as time passes.

Or maybe not so inexplicable. He still honours the notions that have made him the world’s most successful designer — utility, versatility, function dictating shapely form — but now there is a more playful, nothing-to-lose thing creeping in.  There were naïve florals all over this collection. Naïve florals! There was also a pie-eyed happy face visual that said Ibiza, not Milan.

At the same time, Armani appreciates why women come to his stores.   There’s always an authoritative jacket, a pant. He occasionally does himself an injustice, as he did here with baggy britches belted at the knees, like mutant hiking pants,  but there were enough of his languid, unstructured jackets to make up for such a momentary lapse. One in particular, draped and buttoned to one side,  looked like essential Emporio, here in the city, there in some exotic transport. Like the song says, 'summer breeze makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind.'