A $70 Million Emporio Armani

The brand new 315,000-square-foot Giorgio Armani flagship store opened this week on Milan's Via Manzoni. The retail palace occupies three levels of a historic building, and features separate departments for the designer's jeans, his higher-end lines, an art book shop, a florist, an Emporio Armani boutique, an Armani Home department, a Sony electronics section and a Nobu restaurant. The entire store, designed by Michael Gabbelini, cost $62.5 million for the building and another $10 million on the restoration.

Armani, owner of an $850 million company, kicked off the opening with a showing of his spring 2001 collection. Among the attendees were the duchess of York, Sophia Loren and Robert DeNiro. A 25-year retrospective of his collections will be shown later this month at New York's Guggenheim Museum.

Just prior to the opening, Armani stood on the sidewalk outside the store, tearing apart and rearranging a window display. (Pillows were “stacked, rather than scattered,” the 66-year-old designer asserted, and screens were angled “inelegantly.” ) He explained that that he began his career in fashion, four decades ago, as a window dresser.