Giorgio Armani will be in Beijing on May 31st for an unprecedented event celebrating more than a decade of Armani in China. The designer will return to the country for the first time since the spectacular events at Three on the Bund in Shanghai in 2004, and the 2006 opening of the travelling exhibition of Armani’s work organised by the Guggenheim Museum in Shanghai.
The special evening event, “One Night Only in Beijing”, will be held the next day, Thursday, May 31st, at the New Tank in the 798 Art District. For the first time the New Tank, will host a fashion show of such large international scale. The highlight of the evening will be a unique catwalk show presenting the world of Armani to around a thousand guests, including celebrities, dignitaries, local and international press and members of the public. A newly edited version of the Emporio Armani and Giorgio Armani autumn/winter 2012-2013 men’s and women’s collections will be shown on the catwalk, followed by the Giorgio Armani Privé spring/summer 2012 collection, with the addition of fifteen extraordinary Giorgio Armani Privé couture looks created specifically as a tribute to China.
Giorgio Armani says, “I’ve always had a very special relationship with China, a country with a rich cultural background and a sophisticated aesthetic which has often inspired me in my search for atmosphere and mood. It is a place to which I have paid homage in many of my collections. I believe I can say I was one of the first to recognise the potential of the Chinese market: we opened our first boutique in Beijing in 1998, well ahead of the economic boom that has led the luxury sector to become interested in the region. More than a decade after my arrival in China, it seems to me that the time has come to celebrate our presence in the country and to present the current collections in a special way, edited just for this purpose. I didn’t want the celebration to be an end in itself, though; my trip will also offer an opportunity to present the research programme I have developed with Tsinghua University: an initiative I hold very dear, building another bridge between East and West, through the successful exchange of culture and know-how, supporting the new talent the region has to offer.”
The event, as well as the reportage from backstage, will be streamed live from 20:00 hrs Beijing time (GMT + 8:00) on Armani.com and Armani.cn.
