As fans mourn loss of their favourite designer, shoppers hunt for vintage Armani

Ms Kathleen Sorbara was on her way to the airport on the morning of Sept 4 when she suddenly received a barrage of text messages.

- Emilia Petrarca

NEW YORK - Ms Kathleen Sorbara was on her way to the airport on the morning of Sept 4 when she suddenly received a barrage of text messages.

Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, whose labels can be found on the racks at her namesake vintage store Sorbara's, had died at the age of 91. "The store group chat was like, 'Oh my God, Armani's dead," she said. "I was so sad."

Ms Sorbara, 30, is one of many young collectors who became interested in Armani long after his heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, contributing to a recent Armani-aissance fueled by nostalgia, social media and TikTok trends such as "quiet luxury".

They are of a generation whose parents wore Armani clothes, maybe they had a bottle of Acqua di Gio in their high school locker. In the last decade, though, they have been able to invest in their own Armani pieces on resale sites such as eBay and The RealReal. It is a testament to the designer's timeless designs, which still feel modern today.

According to eBay's trend report from May, Armani was the most-bought luxury brand in the United Kingdom and Italy.

By Sept 4 mid-afternoon, as tributes from dedicated Armani archive accounts and celebrities like American television personality Martha Stewart flooded Instagram, searches for "Armani" on The RealReal increased by 212 per cent compared with the day before, said a representative from the company. On e-commerce company Depop, the increase was 288 per cent.

On second-hand fashion app Vestiaire Collective, users across Europe listed their Giorgio Armani pieces for sale on Sept 5, including a black 1990s silk blazer for £245 (S$425) and a leather and rabbit fur jacket from 2002 for £571.