Giorgio Armani unveils his new line The New Normal featuring iconic ex-supermodels. A beautiful demographic of women who the fashion industry fails to acknowledge time and time again, finally gets to shine in the limelight.
Normal is a mood, aimed at intelligent women who realise they don’t need clothes to transform them. I want to convey a sense of reality, of clothes that offer natural elegance and the normality of everyday life.- Giorgio Armani
The New Normal line epitomises the expression of ‘classic’. The intricate yet sophisticated concept of ‘classic’ is always reinvented creatively through a modern embrace in relation to details and proportions. Armani’s new couture collection contains timeless pieces embracing the goodness of classic which has been creatively reinvented by the master of fashion. These timeless pieces will have their very own pedestal for sophistication until the end of time, unlike the passing fads of fashion.
To bring the 2016 Spring/Summer campaign to life, Armani has collaborated with one of the masters of fashion photography, Peter Lindbergh, to capture timeless portraits of the four iconic women of the fashion industry: Eva Herzigova, Stella Tennant, Yasmin Le Bon and Nadja Auermann. These names haven’t been heard or mentioned in a very long time, considering the ladies are well in their 40s and 50s.
For this campaign, I wanted four iconic women with strong personalities to show that feminine beauty is ageless. I chose Peter Lindbergh, with whom I have collaborated several times because his photographs are timeless and are true to real life. I wanted to convey a sense of reality, of clothes that offer natural elegance and the normality of everyday life. – Giorgio Armani
The New Normal line epitomises the expression of ‘classic’. The intricate yet sophisticated concept of ‘classic’ is always reinvented creatively through a modern embrace in relation to details and proportions. Armani’s new couture collection contains timeless pieces embracing the goodness of classic which has been creatively reinvented by the master of fashion. These timeless pieces will have their very own pedestal for sophistications until the end of time unlike the passing fads of fashion. Armani’s chosen models are the representation that beauty is ageless and timeless just like the New Normal couture pieces.
This is about the attitude of women. Real women are more beautiful than ever because they are confident, they have grown into their skins and they want clothes that don’t scream fashion, that they can rely upon season after season – Giorgio Armani
The New Normal’s timeless couture has been fused with the essence of a modern and young woman’s closet and with the traditional Armani style. This fusion allows the active and dynamic contemporary women of style to experiment and reinvents themselves that is comfortable for their skin, with ease.
Timeless garments that maintain the values of elegance and dignity. – Giorgio Armani
The fundamental ideology of fashion is to be always changing and in the past twenty years, the fashion industry has become excessively immersing itself in hipsters, artsy, indie, starlets and ingénues. As the years went on the limelight on these women increased as the accomplished women were left behind. The high-end designers like Donna Karan had was nowhere to be seen; Armani even focused on Armani Privé, straying away from his traditional concepts and the Calvin Klein’s attention was creating couture that had the fusion of polarising fashion elements.
Catering clothes of everyday style that had elements of natural elegance for the women of class and power seemed a waste of time as high-end haute couture creators. The focus on younger demographic of women was the highest of priority.
The horrendously ignored demographic of women had scattered across Chanel, Prada, Akris and various other fashion houses that could cater for their sense of fashion. This still did not fulfil their needs and was ultimately left with immense frustration. Before Armani had decided to return to his traditional aesthetics, Cindy Weber – the former fashion director of InStyle– co-founded online shopping guide Appécier. The main priority of Appécier is providing style advice to matured women who are fashion fanatics.
Sometimes fashion just feels too forced. I love and am interested in women whose lives are not dictated by trends, but by an attitude. Women who are natural, who truly live in and react to the world around them, and are not always swayed by trends. These women are both the inspiration and customer for these clothes. – Giorgio Armani
The New Normal received positive appraisals. The New York Times called it the “Capsule Collection”; Vogue appraised master of fashion as a “tireless innovator” and Fashion Week Daily reinforced that, “Giorgio Armani, the undisputed king of wearability and pioneer of nomcore, has made the ultimate anti-fashion statement.”
Armani has experimented with a variety of embellishments, fabrics and silhouettes for the New Normal. He has used cashmere, silk, satin, virgin wool, to calf skin leather. The Spring Summer collection has his traditional trouser suits, pleated pants, velvet trench coats.
The New Normal Collection
I wanted to create essential and concise pieces that summarise 40 years of style that have defied the test of time because I found that ultimately, there weren’t any ‘normal’ clothes — and by normal I mean not… obvious.- Giorgio Armani
Armani and Lindbergh are master collaborators with a passion for ‘classicism’ and ‘natural elegance’. The array of timeless collections from the partnership has given the fashion world beautifully crafted images that timeless and alluring. Their cleverly contrived imagination for the New Normal campaign has translated artistically through to the portraits evoking the film-like aesthetics. Lindbergh has taken beautiful black and white photographs of the four stunning women with minimal retouching. Lindbergh’s vision was to keep the portraits as natural so to have the everyday appeal with a touch of elegance. The fashion portraits tell a story of four elegant women, not the renowned world-class models they were once before. All four of the women are in the prime of their motherhood which is beautifully captured in the portraits to show their authenticity and maturity without any deception. The aesthetics of the portraits convey Armani’s and Lindbergh’s shared passion for classicism.
Armani saw photographs I had taken of ex-supermodels like Cindy and Helena and was fascinated by their beauty and the fact I do no retouching; that this is them looking natural. I like the idea of what women look like at 40 or 45 and that’s the way Armani likes to see his women now. – Peter Lindbergh.
The behind-the-scenes of New Normal campaign photo shoot
The New Normal collection is now available for purchase for all the bold, influential, dynamic women out there at the Giorgio Armani boutiques and online at Armani.com.
