For London-based stylist and art director Karlmond Tang, his love affair with vintage Giorgio Armani started six or seven years ago with a discovery in the most labor-intensive of discount mines: TK Maxx—the UK equivalent of TJ Maxx. “I actually first started with a two piece Le Collezioni Giorgio suit. It’s still too big and never been altered,” he says. “I just wanted it so bad because of what it stood for to me. After that I had ideas of wanting to recreate their iconic black and white unisex imagery from the ’80s and ’90s.”
Galvanized by those immaculately simple campaigns—particularly those in collaboration with photographer Aldo Fallai who, Armani once said, “created scenes of life, evoked atmospheres and sketched portraits full of character”—Tang was hooked. Over time, he added to his growing collection of vintage Armani suits, eventually buying pieces that came with their own biographies. “My first memorable vintage purchase was someone’s Boyz II Men-esque, white collarless suit which they’d worn for their wedding,” he says. Nowadays, Tang’s archive includes two more wedding suits, and a bunch of womenswear tailoring, too.
There’s always been value in vintage Giorgio Armani. In the 1980 film American Gigolo, Richard Gere wore structured Armani tailoring throughout, including a stand-out grey sports jacket cut with narrow lapels and a slim fit. Years later, the designer told System magazine that this moment led to “phenomenal success” for his brand, marking the point that “my style entered the public consciousness and captured people’s imagination.”
But the suits that came after the stock market crash of 1987 are particularly valuable right now. Because, while Mr. Armani outfitted the razor-sharp excesses of Reagan’s America, his late ’80s and early ’90s tailoring was softer, and more experimental. Thick wool was often mixed with silk and linen. Shoulders were dropped, and silhouettes were loose, and a new Armani era came into being. He would later describ this move as a reflection of a time during which “one has to rediscover a little heart.” Armani suits became fun. And on this path, the designer gave a glimpse into the less structured school of Italian tailoring, taking the easy-come elegance of his home country’s suits to the world.
For Tang, Armani suits “represent menswear tailoring in its most bold, charismatic and handsome form,” allowing him to look and feel like “some slightly smug, heroically proportioned, slick, successful but unpretentious man.” Photographer Mikey Massey got into second-hand Armani through a Le Collezioni blazer bought on eBay because he “wanted to look like Paul Thomas Anderson.” But he quickly spotted something bigger: “I think vintage Armani appeals to people because it’s synonymous with some of its campaigns and catwalks in a way other brands aren’t. It feels like when you buy vintage Armani, you’re buying into that iconography.”
London-based tech consultant Shun Ito began buying vintage Armani tailing for the way that it “looks classic and smart, but quite obviously very comfortable.” Ito points to the fit and fabrics especially. “The jackets I like because they are a touch longer and wider than most of the tailoring I have,” he says. “I loved the fabric and the cut of the trousers with its high waist and the wide-ish fit of that era. The fabric is very heavy, so [it] feels very sturdy, but it doesn’t feel hot and it drapes amazingly—it’s also quite easy to dress down as separates.”
There are signs that the Giorgio Armani of now is looking back to the Giorgio Armani of then. In 2023, a new unisex collection channelled the relaxed fits and lightweight fabrics of the era, while a partnership between the Emporio Armani line and Our Legacy Work Shop, the Swedish label’s collaboration-focused offshoot, drew on archival pieces such as a nylon flight jacket, a leather car coat and, unsurprisingly, a relaxed ’90s-era suit.
The rise of vintage Armani is happening in the midst of a general pre-owned resurgence. Companies like Depop, Grailed and Vinted are established power players, while a new wave of vintage shops across the world are becoming increasingly influential. And then there’s eBay, where most Armani collectors source their pieces. Band tees are especially valuable in a bull market, and sellers have even got into fast fashion flipping. Armani suits, then, are vintage’s latest frontier, driven by people looking for a quality, fit and feel that isn’t served by the current market and, crucially, it comes in at a far lower price. A quick search of eBay reveals ’90s suits in the label’s classic “greige” and blazers promising the “iconic Armani drape” for less than $300.
The interest in vintage Armani goes way beyond the suits. London-based vintage clothing store and archive La Nausée has recently expanded its collection. “One of the early items we stumbled across was an Astro-style Ballistic Bomber from the early 2000s,” says the store’s founder Harry Tibble. “We found the piece on our hunt for its Helmut Lang counterpart, and it spurred us on to look further into the depths of Armani.” As part of that process, Tibble and McLeish have been working with Stefan Turner-Powell, a collector who runs Pure Procure, an archive dedicated to the Italian designer.
Turner-Powell attributes the second-hand hype to the brand’s diverse releases. “There were three or four lines running at any given time during that period: Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Giorgio Armani Le Collezioni, and Armani Jeans,” he says. “He was designing garments that catered to a wide spectrum of consumers. There is an air of timelessness that pervades through his work under each line, whether it’s a take on military, business casual, utility, tech. It’s quality, it’s relevant, and there is something for everybody.”
The different access points—a Le Collezioni suit, or an Emporio Armani bomber jacket—make it easy for people to find something that works for them. Across all of those lines, there’s something consistent, something that keeps people coming back almost exactly 50 years after the label was founded. “The brand, identity and what it represents is everlasting and reliable,” explains Karlmond Tang. “I just can’t see that going away.”
The old imagery, the fabrics and the fits all feed into an emotion, to the way that these clothes make you feel. “It’s the Armani effect,” Tang says. “You’re wearing something that feels so powerful, but nonchalant and carefree.” As the label’s new wave of vintage collectors prove, that feeling is still powerful, and something that’s absent from a lot of contemporary menswear. Even now, after all these years, no one is doing the old-school Giorgio Armani effect quite like Giorgio Armani.
This story originally appeared on British GQ with the title ‘How Giorgio Armani broke the vintage stockmarket’