PARIS’S once-mighty and still- prestigious haute couture week commences today amid the usual speculation that it is dying on its silk-shod feet — and the even more humiliating prospect that it might be given a kiss of life by an Italian.

At a time when the number of blue-chip French fashion houses taking part in haute couture, fashion’s equivalent of Formula One, is at an all-time low, Giorgio Armani has swept into the city. He joins, if temporarily, Dior, Chanel, Christian Lacroix, Jean Paul Gaultier and Valentino: the only names on the schedule this week with real critical resonance. The rest are, in terms of public recognition, if not talent, distinctly second division.

This is unexpected. It is not that Armani isn’t a huge fashion presence. But he is a quintessentially Italian designer who has always chosen to show his collections where they are designed — in Milan, where the beige skies match his famously understated colour palette. Couture’s exuberant high jinks appear to be everything he despises about fashion. This is a man who prides himself on his consistency and rational thinking. While Galliano makes news at Dior by turning models into golden statuettes or eighteenth- century dolls in space-ship sized skirts, Armani’s big statements tend to reside in the minute calibrations of a collar width.

At 70 Armani may still be searching for new challenges — or at least a way of signalling that while there is no clear successor to his empire, its ruler still has plenty of mileage in him. When I asked him whether his decision was intended to refute claims that he is considering retirement, he countered with another semi-question.

“If you are asking whether there are still important opportunities for the company to pursue, the answer is unequivocally yes. Whether it is the new world of Giorgio Armani Prive, our home interiors, our cosmetics or our growing accessories business, these are all projects that I am enthusiastic about.

“I do not feel the need or desire to call it a day just yet.”

Last night he was in Paris, cradle of so much that is irrational in fashion, putting the final touches to the collection that he is unveiling today.

When he explained what prompted him to transport his studio to Paris for a month, it begins to make sense. Having dressed most of Hollywood — in the early Nineties, fashion pundits renamed the Academy Awards the Armani Awards — he has a ready made couture client base. As he observes: “I have always presented a number of special garments within my prêt-a-porter collections. With the increasing interest for personalisation and exclusivity from some of my most important clients, I’ve been thinking for some time that a couture service is appropriate — hence the Giorgio Armani Prive collection.”

He is not, he insists, mounting a challenge to the French, even though it must be tempting. The last time he threw a party here, to celebrate his acquisition of a famous pharmacy in St Germain, there was a public outcry which culminated in the event being cancelled at the last minute amidst dubious concerns from officials about fire regulations.

“The timing just happens to coincide with the departure of some other designers from haute couture,” he says. “To be honest, I only decided to do this six or seven weeks ago. We have been working night and day ever since to get it ready.”

Today’s collection will consist of just 35 outfits, mainly evening wear, and is aimed at red carpet traipsers — it is after all, a growing industry. “For some, couture is about costume and theatre,” he muses. “Not for me. I’m setting about this in a very practical and pragmatic way. This is about offering a very special, personalised service for my best clients. These are garments designed to be worn, not just to create a spectacle on a Paris catwalk”.

He has clearly considered the business implications. “Maybe other designers dropped out because they didn’t have a real base of clients in the prêt-a- porter world who were available to take advantage of a more exclusive personal service.

“Or they were more interested in creating theatre than meeting the desires of real clients,” he muses. “But our most affluent clients have been expressing an interest in unique items for some time.”

As for how the French may greet this latest incursion by the man who turned their beloved Pharmacy into a common-or-garden clothes store, Armani is taking the diplomatic route. “The welcome from the Chambre Syndicale (France’s official fashion organisation) has been very warm.”

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