My normal uniform of wildly printed skirts and colorful dresses went out the window the day that Giorgio Armani decided to give me a minimal makeover. “I see you dressed in another way,” Mr. Armani observed patiently one day in Milan, gazing at my usual cacophony of clothing. “I see you as a woman dressed in menswear, but in a sexy way, with your shirt unbuttoned low.”
A full pantsuit? Shirt unbuttoned low? Me?! I thought I hated pants. I definitely could not envision myself in a grey suit. But the scandalizing idea led to a surprisingly pleasant venture inside the men’s department of the Giorgio Armani boutique in Milan where I promptly fell in love with a man’s red and white checked wool double breasted suit. I wore the oversized suit one evening to an event in Milan. Paired with high heels, fun earrings and white shirt, unbuttoned low just as my Maestro had instructed, the outfit magically captivated everyone I saw including Anna dello Russo who asked to borrow my suit the following day.
It turns out there are a lot of girls who love Giorgio Armani menswear. It’s not just because girls are becoming boys and boys are becoming girls. Women who want to be women are returning to the idea that a simple suit, cut with long, graceful, and sometimes oversized lines, packs a very graceful punch. Together with my team at LaDoubleJ.com, we gathered a group of our favorite creative women in Milan—many of them mothers, all of them stylish, and working hard in a cool professional field– to show off some of these looks.
Styled by La DoubleJ.com’s Viviana Volpicella, each talented woman assumed a different menswear look—from an evening tuxedo on Marta Ferri, louchy pajamas on Selva Barni, double breasted boardroom on Marie Louise Scio, to Hampton’s chic on Kelly Russell. Here they muse on their menswear look, their own personal style, work life, and why Giorgio Armani is still the God of Italian fashion. After all, he got me into a grey men’s pantsuit.
– J.J. Martin
