Rihanna, an artist who has sold more than 35 million albums and 120 million singles across the globe, and  winner of 6 Grammy Awards, is the face of our advertising campaigns for two of our brands. Extremely talented and highly feminine, Rihanna possesses verve and incredible energy, embodying the young, modern and captivating spirit of Armani Jeans and Emporio Armani Underwear.

Giorgio Armani says, “Rihanna is a great artist. She has personality, charisma and energy, and has been a pleasure to work with. She captures the young and contemporary essence of Emporio Armani Underwear and Armani Jeans perfectly.”

Rihanna says, “I have always really admired Giorgio Armani and his elegant work; I never dreamed I’d be able to collaborate with him to design unique, modern and fun clothing.”

Armani Jeans in collaboration with Rihanna

The spirit is classic American denim with a vintage feel and features three pieces of denim, four T-shirts, a leather jacket and a canvas bag in two sizes.

Given that Rihanna is known for being so feminine and sensual, it may come as a surprise to find the designs boyish in their style. A classic tartan print, a denim romper and a simple tank top all suggest an old-school honesty and durability that is certainly authentic and male in its origins. But when you pull this workwear on, you realize that it can be really sexy – think Fifties-style pin up and you get the picture. Take, for example, the high-waisted shorts in a vintage wash. Inside, these have a tartan print that is revealed when you roll them up. Very sexy. As is Rihanna’s other favorite, a romper that she loves to wear herself. It comes in distressed denim with a few holes and is very soft to the touch. Other notable treatments include the bleach-effect on the skinny jeans, which have had their back pockets removed after the bleaching process, leaving the shadowy marks of where they once were.

The four T-shirts are stars of the collection: a classic black tank top with a tiny denim pocket featuring Rihanna’s logo pin; a feminine dusty-pink T-shirt featuring her “eagle+R” logo in silver foil; a printed top with cut-outs, displaying the same bird print as can be found on the underwear; and a long maxi T-shirt, with a huge “cloud” print to suggest the airy summer breeze. By contrast, the leather jacket is small, sexy and very feminine. Finally, the two canvas bags are stylishly utilitarian, reinforcing the overall vintage feel of the collection.

Emporio Armani Underwear in collaboration with Rihanna

Basic, comfortable and feminine, the new items in this collection are made of stretch cotton for everyday wear, and come at affordable prices. The tank-top-and-shorts series is available in black or grey, embellished with a rhinestone logo, while the push-up bra and-thong or panties combination comes in teal or black with a contrasting glitter logo and personalized elastic. A soft micro-fibre series of styles in shaded sky blue completes the collection, and features micro printing and the inscription “Rihanna for Emporio Armani” across the elastic.

For further information please contact:

Bojan Kostic/Christian Langbein

Giorgio Armani Corp.

Tel:  212.209.3677

CLangbein@giorgioarmani.com

Is social media changing the world? Is social media destroying television as a viable entertainment source – particularly reality shows?

Television is no longer the giant it once was. Most people live online and gather their news and their entertainment from the World Wide Web and social media. The reality show, now a TV staple, is in danger of becoming irrelevant because there are so many websites out there that can already tell you the outcome of your favorite reality show.

Back in 2009, a blogger named Erik Qualman wrote a book called: Socialnomic: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business. Qualman does not have cable TV and relies totally on the Internet and his cellphone. Currently, he is global vice president for online marketing for EF Education, based in Switzerland.

Here are just a few of his remarkable findings updated for 2012:

- Gen Y now outnumber the Baby Boomers and 97% of them are engaged in social media

- For the first time ever, social media has overtaken pornography as the number one destination and overall activity for people around the world.

- Half of the population of the Earth – that’s right 50% of all humans living on the planet – is under 30 years old.

- One in every five heterosexual couples met online somehow. It’s a remarkable 3-in-every-5 for the homosexual couples.

- Facebook is actually blamed for one out of every five divorces, as of 2012.

- Speaking of Facebook, if it was a country it would be the third largest country in the world with a population over double that of the United States.

- Within ten years, almost half of the current Fortune 500 will be gone.

- More e-reader devices are sold now than real books.

- LinkedIn signs up a new member every second.

- There are actually almost eighty million more people playing the game, Farmville, than there are actual farmers.

- Ford’s marketing division actually discovered that launching their new Explorer on Facebook was more effective than running a commercial on the Super Bowl.

Oh, and one final note: in the time it took you read this article, over one hundred hours of video has been uploaded to YouTube.

She is known simply as Rihanna. The pop music sensation is known around the world and is the highest-selling digital artist ever, with over 47 million singles sold. Her debut album, Music of the Sun, entered onto the Billboard Top 100 in 2005 and promptly sold 69,000 albums in its first week of release. The CD went on to eventually sell over 2 million copies. Rumor has it that she made nearly 30 million dollars last year and enjoys a fame and fortune like few others.

It wasn’t always so for 24-year-old Robyn Rihanna Fenty. She was born in Barbados to a mother who was an accountant and a father that worked as a supervisor in a clothing warehouse. She often, as a young girl, joined her father in the street as he sold clothing out of his makeshift stall.

She began singing and performing around the age of seven and was a big fan, and listener, of reggae music. Rihanna grew up the eldest of two brothers and a sister. Life in the Fenty house was chaotic and tumultuous as her father’s addictions to crack and booze caused their parents breakup when Rihanna was 14. She attended high school and formed a small singing and music group with a couple of classmates, and was even involved in a military training program at the school. The singer/songwriter Shontelle was her drill sergeant.

In 2003 she was discovered by American record producers Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken. Rogers and his wife were vacationing in Barbados when a friend of theirs, who was also a friend of the Fenty family, raved to Mrs. Rogers about the young talented kid named Robyn Rihanna Fenty.

After meeting the young 16 year old singer, Rogers invited her back to his hotel room where she auditioned for him singing a couple of songs by Destiny’s Child and Mariah Carey. Rogers decided to take her and her mother to New York to make some demo records. The first to come knocking was the new CEO at Def Jam Records, Jay-Z.

She auditioned for him at his office, and Jay-Z was so impressed that he knew that there would be no way he could not sign her and develop her. He told her that there was only two ways she was leaving his office: through the door after signing a contract or out the window.

Since her music debut in 2005, Rihanna has gone on to sell 25 million albums and over 60 million singles and Time Magazine named her one of the world’s most influential people in 2010.

Photo credit: Eva Rinaldi

http://www.flickr.com/people/evarinaldiphotography/

In late December 2010, it smashed a mobile app record with over one million downloads in a single day. Most recent stats declared that the entertainment mobile app game, Angry Birds, is played over 200 million minutes a day around the globe, and since its debut in early 2010, the game has seen over 50 million downloads at Apple’s App Store. If one counts downloads across all platforms, Angry Birds comes in with about 700 million downloads.

The brainchild of entertainment game developer Rovio Mobile of Finland, the game evolved from a group of drawings by one of the game developers. The angry-looking bird, with no visible wings or feet, captured the hearts of the development team and so began the development of a game around them. As the game began to take shape, the developers felt that the birds needed some manner of adversary. During 2009, there was a “swine flu epidemic” traversing the world, so the team settled on pigs for an adversary. Rovio, which was founded in 2002, spent over 100,000 euros on the initial stages of development.

“The original was very different but everybody loved the birds,” said Peter Vesterbacka, the Chief Marketing Officer at Rovio. “Over eight months, Angry Birds became the game we know today.”

Soon after its initial debut, Rovio found themselves scrambling to adapt the software because the entertainment game could not be played across some platforms, including Android.

“Apple will be the number one platform for a long time to come, from a developer perspective,” Vesterbacka commented in late 2011. “Android is growing, but it’s also complexity at the same time. Device fragmentation is not the issue, but rather the fragmentation of the ecosystem. So many shops, so many different models, the carriers messing with the experience again, and paid content just doesn’t work on Android.”

The game was a huge success when it launched and ad revenues began streaming into Rovio. By February of 2010, Angry Birds was the number one download at The Apple App Store. In addition, Rovio developers began designing a version of Angry Birds for Facebook in early 2010. The challenge of translating the entertainment game across platforms was an enormous task for Rovio and the Facebook version took over a year to plan and execute.

Things were not always so smooth for Rovio since its 2003 founding. Vesterbacka and his two founding partners tried 52 such games without a hit and barely a bite. The trio was nearly broke when they began to recognize that their future lay in mobile smartphone devices. They saw the technology as having a major impact on the future. That was where they knew they had to be.

With Angry Birds, however, they felt that they were on to something as the game was relatively simple to understand yet nearly impossible to become an expert at. It began to drive people to distraction. Even co-founder Niklas Hed’s mother was not immune. The story goes that, in one instance, she was so involved with the game that she burned their Christmas dinner.

In March 2011, Rovio secured a $42 million funding injection that it hoped to use to further develop their Angry Birds entertainment phenomenon. In early 2011, Rovio was reporting revenues of over 50 million euros, but the founders felt that raising investments was the key to their survival. The $42 million was spearheaded by Accel Partners, and even the founder of Skype, Niklas Zennstrom, got in on the action. He believes that Rovio will revolutionize the industry and many feel they will have the impact of Disney in the future.

In April 2011, Time Magazine named Vesterbacka one of its 100 Most Influential People.

“Console gaming is dying,” declared Vesterbacka. “We are building an integrated entertainment franchise where merchandising, games, movies, TV, cartoons, and comics, all come together like Disney 2.0. Look at how Disney got started. You can see the same pattern today, only everything is happening much, much faster.”

The final film in the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale epic entertainment Batman collaboration, The Dark Knight Rises, hits theaters on July 20 and marks the end of an era. It is the third, and final, film that this dynamic duo will make.

“We feel a tremendous challenge and responsibility to finish our story”, said Nolan recently. “We have to give the audiences something they haven’t seen before, but also fulfill their expectations. It’s a tricky balance.”

In the final episode for Christian Bale’s caped crusader, Batman continues to struggle with many things and is not really who he once was. On top of all that, two vicious villains, in the guise of Bane and Catwoman, are poised for the kill.

“We wanted to show a character who is aging, who is damaged, who may be past his prime,” Bale commented. “He has never encountered anyone with such blunt force as Bane, and this is not the best time for him to encounter him.”

The Dark Knight Rises is happening eight years after Batman’s tumultuous encounters with the Joker and the mad Harvey Dent. Gotham City has been relatively peaceful and Bruce Wayne has still not fully recovered from his injuries, both physical and psychological, from his battles with those two foes. Not to mention the death of his beloved Rachael.

Batman took the brunt of the blame for Two Face’s crimes and is hated throughout the city. Bruce Wayne has been lying low in a self-imposed exile. The storm clouds are gathering, however, and the caped crusader is forced to return to the fight.

Along with a returning cast of regulars who include Gary Oldman, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, the gruesome trilogy brings on the formidable likes of Tom Hardy as Bane and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.

“Without getting into specifics”, Nolan mused,” the key thing that makes the third film a great possibility for us is that we want to finish our story.”

GIORGIO ARMANI PRESENTS
THE NEW ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN: FRAMES OF LIFE SS12

Following the first launch of the “Frames of Life” campaign in 2010, and the itinerant project, Frames of Your Life, Giorgio Armani’s sunglass collection is now the focus of a summer journey that captures genuine moments of pure relaxation.

Shot in sophisticated black and white by photographer Serge Guerand, the new advertising campaign, Frames of Life – Spring/Summer 2012 speaks of vacations, of an intimate and pleasant atmosphere uniquely set in and around Saint Tropez.

The photographs are powerfully suggestive and hark back to a cinematic iconography, which has become part of the collective imagination, while maintaining the immediacy and directness of a travel journal.   Each shot conveys a state of mind and slice of life and the sunglasses, true icons of the Armani style naturally become integral to the tableau.

The sunglasses collection has been expertly crafted and designed to accompany every instant of simple, every day life. These purely shaped objects are about timeless modernity, and hold a sense of tradition in them and the feeling that they become one with their owners: they are not merely accessories but the expression of the self of each individual who wears them.

The campaign will be online from May at armani.com/framesoflife, the site that has been devoted to the new campaign and conceived as a journal where images and portions of Armani’s official video are revealed in chronological order.  Visitors can follow a day in the life of the campaign models, moment by moment.  The stills will come with brief captions, describing the vibrant and perfect settings of the pictures thus becoming a spontaneous and honest diary shared with the public.  A collection of timeless photographs, which captures the essence of the Frames of Life campaign.

 For further information:   Giorgio Armani Corp.

Bojan Kostic / Christian Langbein

CLangbein@giorgioarmani.com

Tel. 212.209.3677

www.armanipress.com

Milan,  April 19, 2012 – Giorgio Armani is pleased to be collaborating
once again with Lady Gaga. The designer has created a select number of
looks  for  the  artist’s  Born This Way Ball tour, which kicks off in
Seoul on April 27th .  The Asian tour will then move to Hong Kong (May
2nd  ,  3rd, 4th and 5th), Tokyo (May 10th), and Singapore (May 28th).
The  tour  will  culminate  with  performances  in  Australia  and New
Zealand.

The   custom   Giorgio  Armani  wardrobe  created  for  Lady  Gaga  is
characterized  by  extreme  forms  and  futuristic  materials – latex,
metal,  studs, PVC – crafted with couture savoir-faire. Each outfit is
completed with detailed, other-worldly accessories.

The  first design includes a black bodice made of tubular PVC elements
connected  with  metal  studs, with mirrored metal inserts to define a
curvaceous   design.   The  ensemble  is  highlighted  by  a  matching
headpiece,  robotic thigh-high boots, and exaggerated gloves ending in
mirrored nails.

Another  look  is  created via a shiny black grid-patterned PVC bodice
with  matching  headpiece  and  embroidered  ankle  boots.  Highlights
include  shoulders outlined by a play of sharp spikes, black Swarovski
jet crystals and flowing fringe, creating a moving architecture.

On  the  third black bodice, transparent Plexiglas, black crystals and
luminous  studs  create  a Cubist composition of abstract guitars. The
matching  headpiece  follows in the shape of a keyboard; the boots are
black vinyl.

The  final  design  is  a long tunic with leg-o-mutton sleeves made of
skin-toned  latex.  Luminous  PVC elements create flashes of synthetic
light  inside  the garment.  The same avant-garde lighting is featured
on  the  triangle  decorating  the chest, on the headpiece, and on the
platform of the matching latex ankle boots.

“Collaborating with Lady Gaga is always an exciting experience for me.
I  admire  the way she uses fashion as a scenic element and as a means
to  build a character,” says Giorgio Armani. “She is an artist of many
talents  and great intelligence.  Creating stage costumes for her is a
stimulating and creative exercise.”

Giorgio  Armani began his collaboration with Lady Gaga on the occasion
of  the  2010 Grammy Awards ceremony, when the artist wore a series of
outfits  specially  designed  for her. Subsequently, he dressed her in
select  looks  for  the  Monster  Ball  tour in 2010, as well as for a
number of red carpet events and other special occasions.

For  further  information: Giorgio Armani Corp.
Bojan Kostic / Christian Langbein
clangbein@giorgioarmani.com
Tel. 212.209.3677

A coherent philosophy, the quest for a perfect balance between substance
and form, and a sense of beauty as the expression of the finest quality:
the Armani/Casa project, which was born more than ten years ago, speaks of
an extraordinary evolution of style and colors in home furnishing and a
philosophy of décor that is an unprecedented fusion of minimal, yet rich,
decorative elements. These are the very characteristics, along with fine
materials and finishes, that are the foundations of this rigorously
designed and unique new collection, where two different worlds come
together in an imaginary journey that takes us from Venice to the East, to
Japan.

The textiles in the Armani/Casa Exclusive Textiles by Rubelli collection
are extraordinarily refined. Enriched with sumptuous threads and designs
(of particular note is the pattern inspired by Renaissance iconography),
the workmanship and weaving technology used to create the fabrics
complement semi plains and geometric patterns as well as the unique texture
of micro-canneté fabric.

The Armani/Casa philosophy, which embraces the rare and the prestigious, is
applied to a new bookshelf, the Freud, which can also function as a
partition. The surfaces are panelled in Marqueterie de Paille, an exclusive
French technique popular in the Twenties and Thirties that has fallen out
of favour due to its difficulty and laboriousness. Only a select number of
small ateliers have the know how to re-create this workmanship where single
strands of straw are patiently flattened and smoothed out with a small hand
held hammer and then cut individually to the exact size required to create
a given pattern – the same technique favoured by Jean Michel Frank. To give
selected pieces of the collection depth and elegance, a special turtle
decoration lacquer has been hand created by a decorator and applied to
tables, coffee tables and bureaus. The striped gilded silver leaf stucco
finish is also especially refined, and is artfully obtained using a stucco
technique that endows the pieces with a three dimensional quality and an
interesting tactile quality.

Workmanship, painstaking finishes in warm satin natural brass, shiny
veining and streaks, and sprays of gold infuse the pieces with a soft and
unusual light, uncommon in single items of furniture. This detailing
enhances the unique quality of the pieces, which become design elements
that are introduced into home décor with the passion of an art collector.
To illustrate this, witness the “Gold on Gold” showcase: the seven windows
of the Armani/Casa boutique that face Via Manzoni and Via Pisoni reveal an
extraordinary decorative landscape where each golden-hued piece of
furniture shimmers in a golden environment, creating an illuminating
connection between the selected pieces and their settings.

Thus, imbued with traditional know how, with an ever finer line between the
artist who discovers the craftsman in himself and the craftsman who creates
artistic pieces of furniture, the objets d’art in the collection look to
the expert glass craftsmanship of Murano for small hand “scratched”,
acid-etched and bevelled vases, as well as coin and trinket trays and
paperweights, all displaying the Giorgio Armani lettering in full.

The gift items in the collection are unique and amusing: a cartridge belt
to hold coloured pencils and watercolour paints, fireplace accessories
inspired by the practical design of clothes racks, and a magnificent gold
and dark oak chess set that impeccably complements the Oreste coffee table.
The collection also includes a box that opens up to become a cutting board,
decorative cushions in hand tie-dyed Tussar silk in an extraordinarily well
defined grid-like pattern, and cashmere, mohair and merino wool blankets in
a selection of colours including pine green, the colour of the season.

As a man now approaching 6o years old, Henry Lee wanders into the old Panama Hotel in Seattle where a new owner seeks to revitalize the old, once-grand hotel that stood on the border between Seattle’s Chinatown and Japantown. The owner has discovered a trove in the basement. It seems the basement had been used as storage for the belongings of many Japanese families who were sent off to internment camps at the beginning of World War II.

The owner pulls out a parasol he found and shows it to Henry. Henry stands stunned. He is certain it is hers. He is certain that the parasol was Keiko’s. He hasn’t seen Keiko in fifty years but will never be able to forget their love; a love from so long ago.

If you’re looking for more than just great entertainment, try Jamie Ford’s debut novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. The book is exceptionally well written and tells a sad, and yes, bittersweet tale of powerful and tragic love. When we are young, love can only be powerful.

Henry flashes back to his Seattle childhood of the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. His Chinese parents send him to an all-white school so that he can become “truly American.” Henry hates it there because he is the only Chinese student, and he is bullied, ostracized, and friendless. His only oasis is his job in the cafeteria kitchen where he can work late so as to avoid the bullies on his long, lonely walk home…

Until young Keiko comes into his young teenage life. She is Japanese, and, too, is bullied and without friends at the otherwise all-white school. She gets assigned to kitchen duty and her and Henry begin to develop a bond that becomes deep and powerful. Of course, it is a forbidden love. In the world of Seattle in the 1940’s, the Japanese and Chinese hate each other and have a longstanding historical confrontation that cannot be overcome. Telling their parents is, most-assuredly, out of the question.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, America, and especially Seattle, is frightened and hysterical that Japan will attack the west coast of the United States. Japanese-Americans are rounded up and sent far inland, as far as Oklahoma, to internment camps to wait out the fate of the war.

For a while, Keiko is close and Henry manages to travel to see her and remain in contact, and in love. They make one another a solemn vow, a forever type of promise, and know in their hearts that it will be fulfilled come the end of the war. Soon, however, Keiko, and her family are sent hundreds of miles away and, through the painful destiny of missed messages and unfortunate events, they lose touch. Henry eventually marries a Chinese-American girl and settles down to a life in Seattle after the war.

Henry, now nearly 60, wanders the streets of Seattle a widower and estranged from his only son. He ventures into the hotel’s basement and discovers the belongings of Keiko’s family. So begins another journey for Henry. It is a journey that just may bring him back to a long-ago time and a long-ago love.

This story goes beyond mere entertainment. It pulls at our souls and reminds us of the enduring, and haunting, power of young passion; of young love; of choices made; of hope; and of redemption.

The rise of social media has made it possible for artists from all walks of life to share their work with the world. It is these artists, who are functioning outside of the mainstream, that are creating the most cutting edge work. In-depth interviews with lesser-known artists that are on the rise, can introduce the artists and their fresh perspectives to a new audience, as well as inspire other up-and-coming artists to keep creating. At the end of the day, laying the foundation for further inspiration and creativity should be the goal of every arts-related publication.