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He has so thoroughly captured and made over this little pocket of the present that when he decided not to show his new fall women's line during the semiannual glitz and giddiness known loosely as the Milan collections, he incurred the wrath of the press but walked off with the honors anyway. "Armani is the king of the Italian Alps," says Geraldine Stutz, president of the modish New York City department store Henri Bendel. The assorted princesses, princelings and pretenders scattered about the feudal fashion kingdom of Milan sent their models gadding down runways in all the latest but did not succeed in dislodging the king. Gianni Versace, Armani's keenest competitor, took up the historical theme with a vengeance. He weighed in quite literally with some rarefied leather and chain-mail combos that looked like rough-trade rigging that Prince Valiant might have worn to go cruising. Mariuccia Mandelli, who designs for Krizia, sent finlike flounces cascading all over suits and dresses—something, perhaps, for the spouse of Jaws' elasmobranch villain to slip into for the Oscars. There were the usual parades of plushy furs by Fendi and dazzling knitwear by Missoni, but even Gianfranco Ferré, who made the week's best showing with a severely drafted, almost architectural collection, took honors by default.
"Fashion shows have become too much show business and too little fashion business," says Armani, 47, who preferred to present his collection to small groups of buyers. News that drifted out from these private sessions—plus the resplendent showing of a line of suedes and leathers in high-noon colors that Armani designed for Mario Valentino—was sufficient proof that he was still secure atop Stutz's Alps. His absence from the collections—the very term weighty with a self-seriousness completely at variance with Armani's stylings—rebounded loudly and probably widely, at least to Paris, where the French are strutting their stuff this week. Hard pressed by Armani and his Milanese colleagues in the American market (as much as 70% of the European clothes I. Magnin and Bergdorf Goodman now merchandise are Italian, according to one fashion consultant), the French fashion industry is retaliating with standard operational disdain. "I think Italian designers are certainly worth encouraging," sniffs the mighty Givenchy. "I've never been into Armani's boutique here, or that of any other Italian designer," claims Sonia Rykiel, Parisian designer of knits that seem to slink under their own power. "The French have all the Italian skills and madness and creativity. Quite honestly, I can't name you a really crazy Italian designer."