At 74 years old, he is still busy making people look good. Giorgio Armani is one of the preeminent Italian fashion designers in the world, still going strong after 33 years in the industry. Known for his classically tailored, sleek power suits and clean, high quality fabrics, everyone from the who’s who of Hollywood to the bankers on Wall Street have fallen in love with the Armani brand. Now, with over $1.5 billion in revenue and a retail empire that extends to more than 35 countries, Armani himself continues to maintain full control over his business. However, it has been a long, uphill journey for the designer to get where he is today.

“In this business you can’t have a destination, an arrival point,” says Armani. “Otherwise your competitors will overtake you, or you become complacent.” With over $1.5 billion in revenue, Armani remains Chairman, President and CEO of the company he started over thirty years ago. The mere mention of the designer’s name – first or last – and consumers the world over know not only who you are talking about, but also of the luxury product lines for which he has become famous. How did this once-poor boy, hiding from war bombs in a small town in Italy, go on to become one of the world’s leading and most successful experts on fashion and design? 

“Our house was bombed and destroyed and my father didn’t make enough money to support us. There were five of us. Looking back, I realize that we didn’t even have enough to eat, just like many Italian families back then.

My mother was the main reason I developed an interest in fashion. Though we grew up in post-war Italy and were very poor, she always ensured that my brother, sister and myself were immaculately dressed. She was herself an innately elegant woman. In memory of her I named my yacht Mariu, which is the southern Italian dialect for Maria.

My mother dressed in her best clothes, which were always simple but so elegant and sophisticated There were planes flying over us and we were under bombs all of the time. Our parents used to wake us up at night to take us to the shelter.

Remain true to yourself and your philosophy. Changing in the face of adversity will in fact diminish your credibility with your customers. You have to think of the future. If not, we would close down!  My work is my life. Even though it is good to take a holiday, after two vacations it is boring.

The long and short of it for me is that the entrepreneur is the one who at the end decides yes or no and I like that even though it’s a lot of responsibility. It would be very hard for me to do things somebody else’s way. At this point I think of myself more as an entrepreneur than a designer. This is my life’s work and I’m more passionate about it than ever.

Remember that, in the end, the customer doesn’t know, or care, if you are small or large as an organization - she or he only focuses on the garment hanging on the rail in the store.“