MILAN — Exertions will bring you places.

Giorgio Armani definitely embodies this idea, still spearheading his namesake fashion group at age 88 as chairman, chief executive officer and inventive director, and he expressed it in his speech on Thursday, receiving an honorary doctorate in global business management from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore within the storied Nineteenth-century city theater of Piacenza, Italy.

The degree, said Armani onstage, has a worth that’s “twice as special” since it rewards not only his creativity but his role as an entrepreneur, his “commitment and fervour that through the years allowed to rework a dream right into a solid group, a logo of Made in Italy.”

He admitted it was also special since it was bestowed in his birth town of Piacenza, “a magic location crammed with memories and that fascinated me a lot as a baby.” His roots, he remarked, will at all times be in Piacenza.

The motivations for the degree, offered by the college of economy and law, included “the international dimension of the brand,” in addition to Armani’s ”holistic approach to sustainability, inexhaustible pursuit of improvement, and awareness of the centrality of the enterprise within the creation of shared value.”

University Dean Prof. Franco Anelli described the Giorgio Armani company as “vital, enormously successful, undoubtedly unique since it synthesizes aesthetic refinement, originality, vision and manufacturing ability,” realizing what Pope Francis once said, “the harmony of three intelligences: of the mind, the guts and the hands.”

He underscored that Armani’s “classic lines and the standard of the materials reflect a product conceived to survive with ease beyond [the season] of a group,” praising the designer’s “sensibility and promptness in naturally interpreting attitude, roles and functions of the contemporary man and woman. To be yourself, but at your best. On this sense you possibly can speak of classicism” of Armani.

Anelli cited the open letter Armani wrote to WWD through the pandemic “with acute sense of responsibility,” and the designer’s pragmatism. “His ‘less but higher’ is already according to the brand new time.” For that reason, he concluded, the degree is “not a retrospective celebration, but a step in a creative voyage from which we still expect much.”

Armani’s trajectory and successes were traced through the event, which was attended by university students, and the designer in his speech recalled the early days of the corporate, its foundation with Sergio Galeotti and the way “destiny tested me in a tough way,” following the death of his partner, to be able to be certain that the corporate would survive. “Many thought I’d not succeed, but because of my stubbornness, overcoming my ever-present shyness and because of the support of the people near me, to whom I’m grateful, I carried on.”

Armani acknowledged it was an extended journey, “at times complex, but I overcame the difficult moments with commitment, dedication and rigor, values I received at home from my family, and so they are the identical I like to recommend you to at all times follow, to shape what you think in, much more today when there may be a lot ephemeral success. Because what requires commitment, alternatively, lasts.”

He addressed his consistency in expanding from fashion into other categories, constructing a life-style group. Staying true to his North Star, “with courage and confidence, I actually have at all times cultivated my independence, defending it. I hearken to the opinions of others, but it surely is I who decides, at all times weighing risks and advantages, with an amazing sense of responsibility. This fashion I actually have built a gaggle that on this planet has develop into synonymous with quality, beauty, measure, harmony, those aesthetic and industrial values that make Italy big.”

Exertions is essential, he said, but he was also mindful that “it’s essential to have someone by your side,” whether it’s a member of the family, “a cat, a dog or a lover you return to at night.”  

He defined himself “a rational creative,” but at the identical time it’s “passion, an intuition, and the strong desire to comprehend” an concept that drive him. “This job is my life, and a continuous act of affection,” he said, recommending the scholars love what they do. “I would love with my story to be an example, a stimulus, and to remind everyone that real work leads far.”

Throughout his profession Armani has received honorary doctorates from London’s Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, in addition to from Milan’s Brera Academy and the Politecnico University in Industrial Design. Amongst others, in 2021 he was bestowed Italy’s highest recognition, the Knight Grand Cross decorated with Grand Cordon recognition by Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella. In 2008, France recognized the outstanding influence of Armani by making him an Officer of the Legion of Honor.