Giorgio Armani to air September catwalk show on Italian TV

The catwalk show will be broadcast on TV for the first time in a 30-minute primetime slot

(Getty Images)

Following announcements that much of September’s fashion week schedule will be streamed online rather than taking place with a physical crowd, Giorgio Armani has revealed he will be airing his latest collection on television.

The spring/summer 2021 show will be broadcast on La7 on Saturday 26 September in a half-hour primetime slot. It will also be streamed on the brand’s website Armani.com and social media channels.

Armani aims to democratise fashion by streaming the show across multiple channels.

“The designer made this decision so that the show, which will be recorded behind closed doors, can be enjoyed by a vast public,” a spokesperson told The Telegraph.

Confirming that the show will not be attended by any of the celebrity fans who normally fill the front row, a statement from the brand reads: “Considering that the current situation connected to the pandemic, we won’t, unfortunately, allow for the shows to be staged in their usual manner, the designer has chosen two different ways to showcase the collections, both of them without guests.”

The theme for the new collection will be ‘Timeless Thoughts’, while the Emporio Armani spring/summer 2021 collection theme is ‘Building Dialogues’.

The diffusion line will be presented digitally as a video on 24 September on a dedicated mini-site, Emporioarmani-buildingdialogues.com.

With the coronavirus pandemic having caused the cancellation of the traditional schedules for couture and menswear shows earlier this year, brands have begun to experiment with alternative ways of presenting their latest collections.

Jacquemus’ mens show has been a recent highlight in the fashion calendar, which proved the pandemic can help designers to pivot their aesthetic to creative new ways of working. Its field-set show was made for Instagram.

The organisers of London, Milan and Paris fashion weeks have all announced a combination of physical and online shows for the September event, while New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo has stated that due to “strict state public health guidance” the city’s shows will have little or no spectators.