Armani Privé / Spring 2012 Couture

Armani Privé / Spring 2012 Couture

If you zoomed in on the sheer T-shirts hidden beneath the first skirt-suits Giorgio Armani sent out, you would have been able to guess his theme from the start. The fine, geometric mesh fabric was constructed in the shape of snakes’ scales: this was a collection based on the idea of pythons, serpents, the textures and patterns of the reptile world. On nearly every head, there was a small, upstanding coil—a sting?

Like Karl Lagerfeld earlier in the day, Armani set out to design his collection in a single color range: in his case, green—poison green, teal, deep green, chartreuse. At first, the trope wasn’t declared in full. His day wear—essentially pencil skirts with a folded-in frontal volume, or narrow pants—threw the emphasis on his signature strength in jackets, with a couple of mean, super-luxe crocodile versions with swooped-up shoulders, nipped waists, and peplums as standouts.

Really, though, his audience waits for Armani to stake his claim on grand evening-wear, especially at this time of year. With apposite timing, the Oscar nominations for the Academy Awards were just breaking on the audience’s smartphones seconds before the show began. The designer’s longtime client Glenn Close is on the list of Best Actress contenders. But who else might Armani attract with the event-designed options in this collection?

Perhaps the poufy circle skirts, with their faded digital python prints might be a difficult choice to maneuver in the step-and-repeat ritual. But when Armani reached the conclusion of his visual narrative—the idea of metamorphosis—the forms peeled away to leave some slim, powerful, shining gowns, undoubtedly undulating towards that long, red carpet very soon.

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