Giorgio Armani turned the Hollywood red carpet into a runway.<\/p>\n
The iconic fashion designer,<\/a> whose death was announced Wednesday at the age of 91<\/a>, is synonymous with awards-show fashion: Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Demi Moore, Beyonc\u00e9, Denzel Washington and Sean Penn have all worn Armani to the Oscars.<\/p>\n But he first turned the Academy Awards into a fashion show in 1990, when he dressed Julia Roberts, Jodie Foster, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange, some of the hottest young A-listers of the moment. He also pulled off a coup by dressing 85-year-old Jessica Tandy, who won Best Actress for \u201cDriving Miss Daisy.\u201d<\/p>\n Before that, star style barely registered. \u201cStylist\u201d was not a job. Formal wear tended to come off the rack, not from fashion designers, or be provided by the wardrobe departments of movie studios. <\/p>\n Julia Roberts and George Clooney at the 2008 Met Gala with fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who died Wednesday. FilmMagic<\/p>\n Giorgio Armani alongside Jodie Foster, a longtime fan known to tell his design house: \u201cJust tell me what to wear.\u201d WireImage<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the looks were really gaudy or over the top,\u201d Nancy MacDonell, fashion historian and author of \u201cEmpresses of Seventh Avenue<\/a>,\u201d told The Post. \u201cIt was Bob Mackie or Nolan Miller or costume designers who do film and Broadway.\u201d<\/p>\n Armani, though, put Foster \u2014 who, the year before, attended in what looked like a taffeta prom dress \u2014\u00a0in a chic silk trouser suit. Roberts, still a starlet, wore an understated, earth-toned tank dress. Pfeiffer showed up in body-skimming black with long sleeves.<\/p>\n Armani helped transform Foster\u2019s style at the 1990 Oscars, which she attended with Marco Pasanella. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images<\/p>\n That same year, Armani dressed Michelle Pfeiffer (above), as well as Jessica Tandy and Jessica Lange \u2014\u00a0prompting Women\u2019s Wear Daily to dub the night \u201cThe Armani Awards.\u201d Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images<\/p>\n Julia Roberts, with Kiefer Sutherland, was one of the trailblazers who wore Armani to the 1990 Academy Awards. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cThese women looked powerful,\u201d Clare Sauro, a fashion historian and curator at Drexel University,\u00a0told The Post<\/a>\u00a0in 2016. \u201cThey stood in contrast to the big poufy skirts of the time. They had an understated glamour. It was the transition from \u201980s opulence to \u201990s minimalism.\u201d<\/p>\n It prompted Women\u2019s Wear Daily to dub the evening the \u201cArmani Awards.\u201d And after that, designers clamored to claim celebs as their red-carpet models.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole Armani thing is refined and sophisticated,\u201d MacDonell said. \u201cIt let people present themselves very differently. He transformed the way these people are seen on red carpets.\u201d<\/p>\n Wearing Armani\u2019s designs in \u201cAmerican Gigolo,\u201d Richard Gere prompted a fashion trend for power players and those who aspired to be. \u00a9Paramount\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n Gere has worn Armani for many years since the movie. Here he\u2019s seen in 1988 showing the designer his namesake tag. Penske Media via Getty Images<\/p>\n But Armani was hardly an overnight success. While Diane Keaton had accepted her 1978 Best Actress Oscar, for \u201cAnnie Hall,\u201d in an oversized Armani jacket her character might have loved, Michelle Pfeiffer famously responded to his first offer of formal wear with: \u201cI can dress myself, and who is Giorgio Armani?\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, the designer really got his start in Hollywood on the big screen. Before the 1980 release of \u201cAmerican Gigolo,\u201d starring Richard Gere <\/a>and directed by Paul Schrader (his next movie is \u201cBasics of Philosophy<\/a>\u201c), Armani was largely a secret of Italy\u2019s well-dressed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a perfect match,\u201d Schrader, who flew to Milan to meet with Armani after seeing his designs in Uomo Vogue, told The Post. \u201cHe wanted to branch out and we wanted to go high style, high profile.\u201d<\/p>\n Diane Keaton was first to wear Armani to the Oscars, back in 1978. Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images<\/p>\n The goal was to imbue Gere\u2019s character, an expensive male escort in Los Angeles, a \u201cEuropean sheen \u2014 formal suits with the unstructured look.\u201d<\/p>\n The movie blew up and so did the designer. Suddenly, every studio executive in Hollywood, not to mention every stockbroker in Manhattan, wanted an Armani suit to make them look like a power player.<\/p>\n And the designer dove right in to the glamour of Tinseltown \u2014 opening a shop on tony Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and hiring society journalist Wanda McDaniel to handle VIP outreach.<\/p>\n Michelle Pfeiffer, posing with Giorgio Armani, initially spurned the designer\u2019s fashions. Then she had a change of heart. Fred Prouser<\/p>\n Cate Blanchett has been a longtime Armani fan.. Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201c[Armani] was very smart,\u201d said MacDonell. \u201cHe created a VIP dressing room in his store and a lot of relationships were facilitated\u201d with celebs who made him look as good as he made them look. <\/p>\n \u201cYou can do 12\u00a0years\u2019 worth of ad campaigns and it won\u2019t add up to Angelina Jolie getting photographed in your dress,\u201d MacDonell added.<\/p>\n Gere, Foster and Pfeiffer all quickly became associated with the coolly sophisticated look of the Armani brand. So much so that, his employee McDaniel once said Foster \u201cwould call us up and say, \u2018Just tell me what to wear.’\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, that kind of success inevitably inspires jealousy.<\/p>\n Giorgio Armani brought a sense of high style to the mob flick \u201cGoodfellas.\u201d \u00a9Warner Bros\/courtesy Everett Co<\/p>\n Leonardo DiCaprio, in \u201cThe Wolf of Wall Street,\u201d looked just like a 1990s Wall Street guy, rocking an Armani suit. \u00a9Paramount\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n Aramani once recalled competitor Gianne Versace telling him, \u201cI dress sluts. You dress church ladies.\u201d <\/p>\n He grew up a world away from Hollywood, geographically and psychologically. Born in 1934 in Piacenza, Italy, Armani initially pursued a career in medicine before enrolling in the army in his early twenties. His first stint in fashion was as a window dresser at the Milan department store La Rinascente in 1957.<\/p>\n In the 1960s, he worked for a number of fashion houses, including Nino Cerutti, before launching his namesake brand in 1975 with both menswear and womenswear collections.<\/p>\n Rihanna has sported Armani\u2019s designs on several red carpets, including at the 2012 Grammys. Larry Busacca<\/p>\n Lady Gaga wore Armani Priv\u00e9 to the 2018 Grammys. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n As Schrader remembers Armani, he indulged the old-school Italian way of drinking wine with lunch \u2014 but his ambition kept him from overdoing it.<\/p>\n \u201cHe poured a couple fingers of wine into his glass and filled the rest with water,\u201d Schrader said. \u201cSo it only looked like he was drinking wine.\u201d<\/p>\n