Armani Quotes

Guys, we’re so screwed. The women know we didn’t go hunting. (Kyrian) You think? What idiot came up with that lie? (Zarek) I’m not an idiot. And it’s not like I lied. I just omitted what exactly we were hunting and where we were doing it. (Talon) Like your wives wouldn’t know better? When was the last time Mr. Armani hunted something that didn’t have a price tag on it? Oh, and the loafers and trousers are perfect camouflage. (Zarek)

I spin around and see Max running toward me in a gray Armani shirt. "Dante. Oh, Dante. Seal me! Seal me so hard!" He grabs my hips and pumps his toward mine. "Oh, Dante! You're so hot when you seal souls!" I shove my idiot-of-a-best-friend off me and laugh.

Elegance is not about being noticed, it’s about being remembered

Logan’s brow rose. “I’ll have you know that these are Armani track pants.

Angelo Visconti isn’t a knight in shining armor, he’s a monster in an Armani suit.

It looks like Armani and Cartier went to war.

it is a reminder to humanity what we should always remember…is to be kind to one another.” - Dr. Armani, Amazon Lee and the Ancient Undead of Rome by Kira G. and Kailin Gow

I'd hoped to find some sort of weapons stash under the bed or something, but all I find are a pair of Armani slippers. No guns. No flamethrowers. No ninja stars. What kind of right-hand man is this guy?

The Classic Notting Hill junkie, i.e; Armani underwear, Pink’s shirt and Burberry belt tourniquets

I let out a gasp at the surprise with him getting to me so fast. It was kind of dating superman in that way, and instead of the cape and spandex, I got wings and a Armani suit!

Lips twitching spasmodically, Devon put me back in the hold, and I did the only thing I could think of to alleviate his guilt and put him in fighting mode for real. “Armani is for mama’s boys, and a movie doesn’t count as a real film if nothing gets blown up.” You’re going down, Bronwyn. Them’s fighting words.

In what world is Armani here seventeen?” Cristiano shrugged unapologetically. “They feed us better in Italy.

Come on,” he said, and then dragged me toward the house. I stopped when we got to the porch. “What is that smell?” Ryan sniffed his shirt and with a smile said, “Armani. You like it?” “Not you,” I said. “It smells like someone is frying up dog vomit in your house.” This took Ryan by surprise. I guess it was pretty random. “You’re really sick sometimes, Baker,” Ryan said. “You know that?

And so, on a night in late May, I found myself standing on the lawn of a Hyde Park mansion of vampires, staring up at the stone-framed visage of a boy in Armani, an enemy who’d become an ally. Ironic, I thought, that I’d given up one ally today but gained another.Ethan ran a hand through his hair. “What are you thinking about?” I whispered up, knowing he couldn’t hear me. Where was a boom box when you needed one?

He wore Armani suits and drove a Jaguar, but finally he was just another ant, working and working until he died without meaning. The very fact that he existed in this world would eventually be forgotten. 'Such a shame, he was so young,' people might say. Or they might not.

There is evidence that the honoree [Leonard Cohen] might be privy to the secret of the universe, which, in case you're wondering, is simply this: everything is connected. Everything. Many, if not most, of the links are difficult to determine. The instrument, the apparatus, the focused ray that can uncover and illuminate those connections is language. And just as a sudden infatuation often will light up a person's biochemical atmosphere more pyrotechnically than any deep, abiding attachment, so an unlikely, unexpected burst of linguistic imagination will usually reveal greater truths than the most exacting scholarship. In fact. The poetic image may be the only device remotely capable of dissecting romantic passion, let alone disclosing the inherent mystical qualities of the material world. Cohen is a master of the quasi-surrealistic phrase, of the "illogical" line that speaks so directly to the unconscious that surface ambiguity is transformed into ultimate, if fleeting, comprehension: comprehension of the bewitching nuances of sex and bewildering assaults of culture. Undoubtedly, it is to his lyrical mastery that his prestigious colleagues now pay tribute. Yet, there may be something else. As various, as distinct, as rewarding as each of their expressions are, there can still be heard in their individual interpretations the distant echo of Cohen's own voice, for it is his singing voice as well as his writing pen that has spawned these songs. It is a voice raked by the claws of Cupid, a voice rubbed raw by the philosopher's stone. A voice marinated in kirschwasser, sulfur, deer musk and snow; bandaged with sackcloth from a ruined monastery; warmed by the embers left down near the river after the gypsies have gone. It is a penitent's voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toasts -- spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love. It is a voice meant for pronouncing the names of women -- and cataloging their sometimes hazardous charms. Nobody can say the word "naked" as nakedly as Cohen. He makes us see the markings where the pantyhose have been. Finally, the actual persona of their creator may be said to haunt these songs, although details of his private lifestyle can be only surmised. A decade ago, a teacher who called himself Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh came up with the name "Zorba the Buddha" to describe the ideal modern man: A contemplative man who maintains a strict devotional bond with cosmic energies, yet is completely at home in the physical realm. Such a man knows the value of the dharma and the value of the deutschmark, knows how much to tip a waiter in a Paris nightclub and how many times to bow in a Kyoto shrine, a man who can do business when business is necessary, allow his mind to enter a pine cone, or dance in wild abandon if moved by the tune. Refusing to shun beauty, this Zorba the Buddha finds in ripe pleasures not a contradiction but an affirmation of the spiritual self. Doesn't he sound a lot like Leonard Cohen? We have been led to picture Cohen spending his mornings meditating in Armani suits, his afternoons wrestling the muse, his evenings sitting in cafes were he eats, drinks and speaks soulfully but flirtatiously with the pretty larks of the street. Quite possibly this is a distorted portrait. The apocryphal, however, has a special kind of truth. It doesn't really matter. What matters here is that after thirty years, L. Cohen is holding court in the lobby of the whirlwind, and that giants have gathered to pay him homage. To him -- and to us -- they bring the offerings they have hammered from his iron, his lead, his nitrogen, his gold.

We reminded them once, then a second time, and then we sent my sister in an Armani suit, armed with her laptop. None of us had any idea what she said, but the payment usually arrived within twenty-four hours.

This? I thought, after a twenty-year civil war: This? Armageddon I expected; but Armani I did not.

When you think of stylish fashion designers, you probably think of Tom Ford, Donatella Versace, Giorgio Armani, and BearPaw Duck And Meme Farm. Wait, what? You don't think about the first three?

Are you cold?” he asks, turning toward me to run the backs of his fingers up and down my upper arm, as if testing the temperature of my skin. “Here,” he says, taking off his jacket and draping it over my shoulders. The jacket is warm and heavy and smells just like Nash, like whatever cologne or soap he uses. I figure it must be called delicious, maybe by Armani or some other fancy designer. It almost makes my mouth water. “Is that better?” He wraps his arm around me, too, as if to ensure I won’t be cold. Of course, I won’t complain. Even if I was sweating, I wouldn’t complain. “That’s much better, thank you.

You're not me,' Millhouse gritted. 'True. I'm sitting in a chair wearing Armani. You're on the floor, wearing an ugly orange jumpsuit. You're facing a long stay at Hotel Don't-Bend-Over and I'll go home to a soft, warm bed. I'm glad I'm not you for those reasons alone. But the biggest difference between us is my people believe in me and yours don't.

Not too many years ago, the names of our perfumes bore testimony to such things. There was a popular scent called Tabu, there was Sorcery, My Sin, Vampire, Voodoo, Evening in Paris, Jungle Gardenia, Bandit, Shocking, Intimate, Love Potion, and L'Heure Bleue—The Blue Hour. Nowadays what do we find? Vanderbilt, Miss Dior, Lauren, and Armani, perfumes named after glorified tailors"—there were murmurs and gasps in the audience—"names that evoke not the poetic, the erotic, the magic, but economic status, social snobbery, and the egomania of designers. Perfumes that confuse the essence of creation with the essence of money. How much sustenance can the soul receive from a scent entitled Bill Blass?

لم تُغير عطرك طوال السنوات الأربع الماضية .. ! .. تَظنُ بأنه لابد من أن نختار عطراً واحداً .. نستمر عليه لفترة طويلة .. لتُذكرنا رائحة العطر بالشخص نفسه .. ! .. وكُنت محقاً .. ! .. لا أحب Armani Code .. ! .. يستخدمه الكثيرون .. وليست الرائحة المُفضلة لدي .. لكنه عطرك .. ! .. ورائحتك مُختلفة به بل رائحته من خلالك مُختلفة .. مختلفة جداً .. ! .. أهديتني يوماً .. قنينة عطرك .. ووسادة وردية اللون .. نُقشَ عليها بخطوطِ حمراء .. True Love .. ! .. سألتك لماذا تهديني وسادة وعطرك .. ! .. قلت لي : الوسادة .. ! .. لأكون آخر من تُفكري فيه قبل أن تنامي .. ! .. أما عطري .. فلتملأ رائحتي رئتيكِ وكُل مافيك .. فلا تُفكري بغيري أبداً .. ! .. لم تَكُن بحاجةِ لعطرِ ووسادة ياعزيز لأذكرك .. ! .. كُنت أضعُ بعضاً من عطرك على الوسادة قبل أن أنام في كُل ليلة .. ! .. كُنت أشعر وكأني أنام على صدرك .. بين ذراعيك .. ! .. لكني أكاد أجزم بأن صدرك أكثر دفئاً من وسادتك هذه .. !! ..

Near him were two men in hip-hop uniform, spotless footwear and new baggy jeans and tilted Yankees caps. Shopping for blue jeans at Macy’s, Dismas had discovered that hip-hop labels were as expensive as, if not more expensive than some of the high-end names he coveted. Functional clothing designed to absorb sweat and repel mud cost as much as designer eveningwear. Phat Farm, Armani, same difference.

Looks like the devil really does wear Gucci.” He snorts. “I already told you I’m a vampire, not a devil—though I suppose you could be forgiven for confusing the two, since you know my wayward little brother. Also, to be clear, this is Armani.

He was immaculately dressed, without trying. He dressed that way by nature - which meant that he had money - and I loved money. I recognized the royal sign of the Rolex, the fine thread of Armani, the easy way he looked at the world. I also recognized the way he said "thank you" when the bartender refilled his drink, and how when the couple next to him swore repeatedly, he flinched. his type was hardly ever single. I wondered what stupid bitch let him go. Whoever she was, I would wipe her from his memory in no time at all.

Artemis was wearing a pair of red Armani boxer shorts, which were pretty much the same color as his face.

So it's off with the shellsuit and on with the Armanis, Bring out the champagne and the caviar sarnies

If you do it in the bookies, it's a bet. . . . If you pay some 23-year-old in an Armani suit two hundred grand to go to the window for you, it's a derivative.

Wednesday walked out into the firelight, a big old man with a glass eye in a brown suit and an old Armani coat.

ormai Armani vende di tutto: c’è un Armani-libri, un Armani-mobili, un Armani-fiori e perfino un Armani-dolci. I libri sembrano fiori, i dolci hanno il sapore degli sgabelli e i fiori si potrebbero indossare.

Everyone! Can I have your attention please,” Will calls out so that everyone is staring at him. Which was totally unnecessary because everyone already was staring at him. It’s hard not to notice when a six foot two linebacker of a man in an Armani suit stands up on a table in your office. Good thing we have very high ceilings. “This is your doing, Jackie-O,” my father whispers to me. “He was normal before he ever met you.

Lizzie and I arrived in the polluted heat of a London summer. We stood frozen at street corners as a blur of pedestrians burst out of the subways and spilled like ants down the pavements. The crowed bars, the expensive shops, the fashionable clothes - to me it all seemed a population rushing about to no avail...I stared at a huge poster of a woman in her underwear staring down at her own breasts. HELLO BOYS, she said. At the movies we witnessed sickening violence, except that this time we held tubs of popcorn between our legs and the gunfire and screams were broadcast in digital Dolby. We had escaped a skull on a battlefield, only to arrive in London, where office workers led lines of such tedium and plenty that they had to entertain themselves with all the f****** and killing on the big screen. So here then was the prosperous, democratic and civilized Western world. A place of washing machines, reality TV, Armani, frequent-flier miles, mortgages. And this is what the Africans are supposed to hope for, if they're lucky.

But apart from that single expensive item, she stayed away from the high-dollar racks. Luxury was all well and good for a Fae prince, but what would she do with a pair of six-hundred-dollar Gucci boots? She'd be afraid to walk in them. Probably trip and break an ankle or something, and wasn't there some old fairy tale about stolen shoes that punished the thief? She knew better than most people that fairy tales had a twisted way of coming true. She slipped into jeans and laced up tennis shoes. A sturdy pair of hiking boots went into the satchel. She was done before he was. Figured. And when he returned, he was wearing dark, tattooed Armani jeans, with a sheer white silk tee and six-hundred dollar Gucci boots. Which also figured.

You’re sure you want to do this,” Galen says, eyeing me like I’ve grown a tiara of snakes on my head. “Absolutely.” I unstrap the four-hundred-dollar silver heels and spike them into the sand. When he starts unraveling his tie, I throw out my hand. “No! Leave it. Leave everything on.” Galen frowns. “Rachel would kill us both. In our sleep. She would torture us first.” “This is our prom night. Rachel would want us to enjoy ourselves.” I pull the thousand-or-so bobby pins from my hair and toss them in the sand. Really, both of us are right. She would want us to be happy. But she would also want us to stay in our designer clothes. Leaning over, I shake my head like a wet dog, dispelling the magic of hairspray. Tossing my hair back, I look at Galen. His crooked smile almost melts me where I stand. I’m just glad to see a smile on his face at all. The last six months have been rough. “Your mother will want pictures,” he tells me. “And what will she do with pictures? There aren’t exactly picture frames in the Royal Caverns.” Mom’s decision to mate with Grom and live as his queen didn’t surprise me. After all, I am eighteen years old, an adult, and can take care of myself. Besides, she’s just a swim away. “She keeps picture frames at her house though. She could still enjoy them while she and Grom come to shore to-“ “Okay, ew. Don’t say it. That’s where I draw the line.” Galen laughs and takes off his shoes. I forget all about Mom and Grom. Galen, barefoot in the sand, wearing an Armani tux. What more could a girl ask for? “Don’t look at me like that, angelfish,” he says, his voice husky. “Disappointing your grandfather is the last thing I want to do.” My stomach cartwheels. Swallowing doesn’t help. “I can’t admire you, even from afar?” I can’t quite squeeze enough innocence in there to make it believable, to make it sound like I wasn’t thinking the same thing he was. Clearing his throat, he nods. “Let’s get on with this.” He closes the distance between us, making foot-size potholes with his stride. Grabbing my hand, he pulls me to the water. At the edge of the wet sand, just out of reach of the most ambitious wave, we stop. “You’re sure?” he says again. “More than sure,” I tell him, giddiness swimming through my veins like a sneaking eel. Images of the conference center downtown spring up in my mind. Red and white balloons, streamers, a loud, cheesy DJ yelling over the starting chorus of the next song. Kids grinding against one another on the dance floor to lure the chaperones’ attention away from a punch bowl just waiting to be spiked. Dresses spilling over with skin, matching corsages, awkward gaits due to six-inch heels. The prom Chloe and I dreamed of. But the memories I wanted to make at that prom died with Chloe. There could never be any joy in that prom without her. I couldn’t walk through those doors and not feel that something was missing. A big something. No, this is where I belong now. No balloons, no loud music, no loaded punch bowl. Just the quiet and the beach and Galen. This is my new prom. And for some reason, I think Chloe would approve.

Il suo stile [di Milano, n.d.r.] lo sintetizzerei con tre D: discrezione, disciplina, dovere. In un mondo che tende alla cialtroneria, all’anarchia dei comportamenti e alla furberia, ben venga il calvinismo milanese! Giovanni Iozzi, Class, marzo 1998

The other person at the Frost Report table to whom I was drawn was one Marty Feldman. I hasten to add that my interest in him was platonic: in fact when I first met him, I was rather shocked by his physical appearance. Dressed only in black, heavily suntanned and very fit, he looked like an Armani gargoyle. This was the script editor?

[The photos] all bore the hallmarks of very expensive lighting and artistry, but Godric was projecting variations on the same emotion in every single one of them. Acute awkwardness. Admittedly he'd really gotten "awkward" nailed--even in black Armani, leaning against a glass wall, he looked like a teenager waiting outside an STD clinic.

Like putting an Armani suit on Attila the Hun, interface design only tells how to dress up an existing behavior.

What the fuck is this thing? Excalibur?” Adam grunted, starting to sweat through his now ruined Armani t-shirt. He gave his brother a disgusted look. “Seriously, man. How did you fuck up this bad?

Armani froze to the spot, unable to move. Her breath tightened in her lungs, shivers of awareness ran down her spine, the sudden energy zipping through her body announcing the shimmer of recognition.

She tapped her chest. “No, I’m not a freak, okay, so could you stop pressuring me.” Rafael muttered something under his breath, throwing up his hands in surrender. “So what am I? What’s Karhl, Jayani, my brother, and all the BaSatai? Are we all freaks? Just because this human has some kind of fascination with labeling you, you believe in it. Be your own person, Armani, not what someone else says you are.

You have my jacket, which I bet you sleep in. That’s what girls do, right? Sleep in their boyfriend’s T-shirts?” “Yeah, T-shirt. Not an expensive silk Armani suit jacket.” “Aw, look, you noticed all of that. You were sniffing it, weren’t you? Just admit it.

This man was a high-powered operator, but also prone to overwork. He earned a high salary, but he couldn’t use it now that he was dead. He wore Armani suits and drove a Jaguar, but finally he was just another ant, working and working until he died without meaning.

I'd have provided her with diagrams and flow charts. But, Sam ruined that day she told the school we weren't dating. Sharks prowl in the water now, and I'll be damned if I step aside now and let Logan woo her with coffee and cheap teddy bears. It's time to break out the big guns: Signor Armani.

He earned a high salary, but he couldn’t use it now that he was dead. He wore Armani suits and drove a Jaguar, but finally he was just another ant, working and working until he died without meaning. The very fact that he existed in this world would eventually be forgotten. “Such a shame, he was so young,” people might say. Or they might not.

Non sopporto quelli che fanno una vacanza come se stessero in città, che passano da un locale all’altro con un bicchiere in mano. Perdere coscienza di se stessi è da idioti.

In momenti di duro lavoro, di preoccupazione, chiamavo sempre mia madre e le chiedevo di andare a cena da lei.

There can be nothing without love. No money, no power. Love is very important. When you wake up in the morning, you need to know that somebody else is waking up, thinking of you.

AHH I MISS U TOO!!

blue jeans by Armani, a white Polo shirt, an Armani sport coat, no tie, hair slicked back with Thompson mousse; since it’s drizzling, a pair of black waterproof lace-ups by Manolo Blahnik; three knives and two guns carried in a black Epi leather attaché case ($3,200) by Louis Vuitton; because it’s cold and I don’t want to fuck up my manicure, a pair of Armani deerskin gloves.

Armani halted, thinking twice about making her way over there, but she pushed forward not wanting to believe something was wrong. There was nothing worse than walking into a nightmare. And Armani just did. The air in her lungs seized when she saw her draped all over him. She blinked a few times, but Lily was still pressing her body all over Rafael. Armani wanted to kill her, right then and there.

This man was a high-powered operator, but also prone to overwork. He earned a high salary, but he couldn’t use it now that he was dead. He wore Armani suits and drove a Jaguar, but finally he was just another ant, working and working until he died without meaning. The very fact that he existed in this world would eventually be forgotten. “Such a shame, he was so young,” people might say. Or they might not.

Fashion is not a government, is not political; and yet it mantles the world much the way religion does. It includes and enforces its own rules, liturgies, disciplines. It has its own territories, its own language, its own hierarchy.

Sunset at Seminyak Barefoot, the well heeled expats drift from the beach into mauve chaise lounges wearing trendy Thai fisherman pants and billowing knock-off Armani linens. They dis the local touts, piss and moan about the tawdry and 'so yesterday'. Devout Splenglerians, they spout the rise and fall of fashion every fucking fifteen minutes. Exhaling the outlaw plumes of Hoyo de Monterrey Churchills, they drown in their Courvoisier and Hennessey Privilege as the unfashionable sun plunges divinely into the Bali Strait unnoticed.

In this office right now I am thinking about how long it would take a corpse to disintegrate right in this office. In this office these are the things I fantasize about while dreaming: Eating ribs at Red, Hot and Blue in Washington, D.C. If I should switch shampoos. What really is the best dry beer? Is Bill Robinson an overrated designer? What’s wrong with IBM? Ultimate luxury. Is the term “playing hardball” an adverb? The fragile peace of Assisi. Electric light. The epitome of luxury. Of ultimate luxury. The bastard’s wearing the same damn Armani linen suit I’ve got on.

Molta gente desidera una vita straordinaria, ricca, all'insegna della fama e del lusso, che deve essere fatta necessariamente di momenti spettacolari. In realtà, oggi, il vero lusso non è qualcosa di materiale, ma uno stato mentale che ti permette di vivere la quotidianità in modo speciale, autentico.

It’s finger time!” Steve simply grunted. Li responded like she always had to the request over the past years, by walking over to the tall oak cabinet in his office and pulling out a pack of Vienna Fingers. She then closed the door and walked around the desk and dropped to her knees, crawling the few extra feet under his desk. Li handed the red and white plastic package of cookies to Steve, who slid the tray open while his virtual slave unzipped the trousers of his blue Armani pinstripe suit and then dug deep to find his pleasure source. Twenty seconds later, when both of them had consumed their mid-afternoon snacks, Steve transitioned back into his unrelenting work persona.

In the wake of the Empire Media scandal, the CEO of Townsend’s received a threatening note, which the police deemed to be credible. The note, signed Jennifer, demanded that the lads’ magazines be removed from every branch of Townsend’s and replaced with soft-core gay male porn. The CEO took immediate action. The lads’ magazines were exchanged for those that featured images of buff young men, hairless and muscled and bronzed, with bulging underpants (if they were wearing underpants). The men played with their nipples and flashed their man patches. After the renovation, Townsend’s was filled with women and girls. It was funny to see images of semi-naked, sexed-up men. For women it was like being in a carnival funhouse, where nothing was as it was supposed to be. News reports claimed that men felt uncomfortable going into the shops, since the women were leering and laughing. Businessmen in Armani suits tried to conduct themselves with dignity, but it was difficult to do with all those perfect male butts in their faces, with those men staring at them with a look that said fuck me.

She wasn’t sure when she realized that she wasn’t alone. She’d heard a louder murmur from the crowd outside, but she hadn’t connected it with the door opening. She looked over her shoulder and saw Tate standing against the back wall. He was wearing one of those Armani suits that looked so splendid on his lithe build, and he had his trenchcoat over one arm. He was leaning back, glaring at the ceremony. Something was different about him, but Cecily couldn’t think what. It wasn’t the vivid bruise high up on his cheek where Matt had hit him. But it was something…Then it dawned on her. His hair was cut short, like her own. He glared at her. Cecily wasn’t going to cower in her seat and let him think she was afraid to face him. Mindful of the solemnity of the occasion, she got up and joined Tate by the door. “So you actually came. Bruises and all,” she whispered with a faintly mocking smile, eyeing the very prominent green-and-yellow patch on his jaw that Matt Holden had put there. He looked down at her from turbulent black eyes. He didn’t reply for a minute while he studied her, taking in the differences in her appearance, too. His eyes narrowed on her short hair. She thought his eyelids flinched, but it might have been the light. His eyes went back to the ceremony. He didn’t say another word. He didn’t really need to. He’d cut his hair. In his culture-the one that part of him still belonged to-cutting the hair was a sign of grief. She could feel the way it was hurting him to know that the people he loved most in the world had lied to him. She wanted to tell him that the pain would ease day by day, that it was better to know the truth than go through life living a lie. She wanted to tell him that having a foot in two cultures wasn’t the end of the world. But he stood there like a painted stone statue, his jaw so tense that the muscles in it were noticeable. He refused to acknowledge her presence at all. “Congratulations on your engagement, by the way,” she said without a trace of bitterness in her tone. “I’m very happy for you.” His eyes met hers evenly. “That isn’t what you told the press,” he said in a cold undertone. “I’m amazed that you’d go to such lengths to get back at me.” “What lengths?” she asked. “Planting that story in the tabloids,” he returned. “I could hate you for that.” The teenage sex slave story, she guessed. She glared back at him. “And I could hate you, for believing I would do something so underhanded,” she returned. He scowled down at her. The anger he felt was almost tangible. She’d sold him out in every way possible and now she’d embarrassed him publicly, again, first by confessing to the media that she’d been his teenage lover-a load of bull if ever there was one. Then she’d compounded it by adding that he was marrying Audrey at Christmas. He wondered how she could be so vindictive. Audrey was sticking to him like glue and she’d told everyone about the wedding. Not that many people hadn’t read it already in the papers. He felt sick all over. He wouldn’t have Audrey at any price. Not that he was about to confess that to Cecily now, after she’d sold him out. He started to speak, but he thought better of it, and turned his angry eyes back toward the couple at the altar. After a minute, Cecily turned and went back to her seat. She didn’t look at him again.

WE’RE GOOD AT WRONG SPOTTING If you’ve ever received feedback at work—or had an in-law—you are familiar with the many shapes and sizes of wrong: It’s 2 + 2 = 5 wrong: It is literally incorrect. I could not have been rude at that meeting because I was not at that meeting. And my name is not Mike. It’s different-planet wrong: Somewhere in the universe there may exist a carbon-based life form that would have taken offense at my e-mail, but here on Earth everyone knows it was a joke. It used to be right: Your critique of my marketing plan is based on how marketing worked when you were coming up. Before the Internet. And electricity. It’s right according to the wrong people: Some see me that way, but next time, talk to at least one person who is not on my Personal Enemies List. Your context is wrong: I do yell at my assistant. And he yells at me. That’s how our relationship works—key word being “works.” It’s right for you, but wrong for me: We have different body types. Armani suits flatter you. Hoodies flatter me. The feedback is right, but not right now: It’s true that I could lose a few pounds—which I will do as soon as the quintuplets are out of the house. Anyway, it’s unhelpful: Telling me to be a better mentor isn’t helping me to be a better mentor. What kind of mentor are you anyway? Why is wrong spotting so easy? Because there’s almost always something wrong—something the feedback giver is overlooking, shortchanging, or misunderstanding. About you, about the situation, about the constraints you’re under. And givers compound the problem by delivering feedback that is vague, making it easy for us to overlook, shortchange, and misunderstand what they are saying. But in the end, wrong spotting not only defeats wrong feedback, it defeats learning.

Fu il fascismo italiano a convincere molti leader liberali europei che il nuovo regime stesse attuando interessanti riforme sociali in grado di fornire un’alternativa moderatamente rivoluzionaria alla minaccia comunista. (...) Si può dire che il fascismo italiano sia stata la prima dittatura di destra che abbia dominato un paese europeo, e che tutti i movimenti analoghi abbiano trovato in seguito una sorta di archetipo comune nel regime di Mussolini. Il fascismo italiano fu il primo a creare una liturgia militare, un folklore, e persino un modo di vestire – riuscendo ad avere all’estero più successo di Armani, Benetton o Versace.

Julius Epstein wore mendacity like an Armani suit. The fit was impeccable.

Love might not conquer all, but the Devil and his deceitful ways most certainly could. I had an arsenal of devious plans up my Armani sleeves and I would use each and every one until my darkness was mine once more.

Months beforehand I started focusing my Manhattanite efficiency on getting registered in Italy, Andrea leading me by the hand through the wilderness of Old World red tape. The first step was “getting my documents together,” an Italian ritual repeated before every encounter with officialdom. Sticking to a list kindly provided by the Italian Consulate, I collected my birth certificate, passport, high school diploma, college diploma, college transcript, medical school diploma, medical school transcript, certificates of internship and residency, National Board Examination certificates, American Board of Internal Medicine test results, and specialization diploma. Then I got them transfigured into Italian by the one person in New York authorized by the Italian Consulate to crown his translation with an imprimatur. We judiciously gave him a set of our own translations as crib notes, tailored by my husband to match the Rome medical school curriculum. I wrote a cover letter from Andrea’s dictation. It had to be in my own hand, on a folded sheet of double-sized pale yellow ruled Italian paper embossed with a State seal, and had to be addressed “To the Magnificent Rector of the University of Rome.” You have to live in Italy a while to appreciate the theatrical elegance of making every fiddler a Maestro and every teacher a Professoressa; even the most corrupt member of the Italian parliament is by definition Honorable, and every client of a parking lot is by default, for lack of any higher title, a Doctor (“Back up, Dotto’, turn the wheel hard to the left, Dotto’”). There came the proud day in June when I got to deposit the stack of documents in front of a smiling consular official in red nail polish and Armani. After expressing puzzlement that an American doctor would want to move to her country (“You medical people have it so good here”), she Xeroxed my certificates, transcripts, and diplomas, made squiggles on the back to certify the Xeroxes were “authentic copies,” gave me back the originals, and assured me that she’d get things processed zip zip in Italy so that by the time I left for Rome three months later I’d have my Italian license and be ready to get a job. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. When we were about to fly in September and I still hadn’t heard from her, I went to check. Found the Xeroxes piled up on Signora X’s desk right where I’d left them, and the Signora gone for a month’s vacation. Slightly put out, I snatched up the stack to hand-carry over (re-inventing a common expatriate method for avoiding challenges to the efficiency of the Italian mails), prepared to do battle with the system on its own territory.

How was a guy with custom Armani suits such a dork? And how was I? Because that cheesy line made me grin like an idiot.

Addison dramatically put a hand to her chest, covering the V-neck of her sleek, green cocktail dress. “If only the world could understand the suffering of this rich white man in his custom Armani suit.

This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path—the my-isn’t-that-impressive path—and keep you there for a long time. Maybe it stops you from swerving, from ever even considering a swerve, because what you risk losing in terms of other people’s high regard can feel too costly. Maybe you spend three years in Massachusetts, studying constitutional law and discussing the relative merits of exclusionary vertical agreements in antitrust cases. For some, this might be truly interesting, but for you it is not. Maybe during those three years you make friends you’ll love and respect forever, people who seem genuinely called to the bloodless intricacies of the law, but you yourself are not called. Your passion stays low, yet under no circumstance will you underperform. You live, as you always have, by the code of effort/result, and with it you keep achieving until you think you know the answers to all the questions—including the most important one. Am I good enough? Yes, in fact I am. What happens next is that the rewards get real. You reach for the next rung of the ladder, and this time it’s a job with a salary in the Chicago offices of a high-end law firm called Sidley & Austin. You’re back where you started, in the city where you were born, only now you go to work on the forty-seventh floor in a downtown building with a wide plaza and a sculpture out front. You used to pass by it as a South Side kid riding the bus to high school, peering mutely out the window at the people who strode like titans to their jobs. Now you’re one of them. You’ve worked yourself out of that bus and across the plaza and onto an upward-moving elevator so silent it seems to glide. You’ve joined the tribe. At the age of twenty-five, you have an assistant. You make more money than your parents ever have. Your co-workers are polite, educated, and mostly white. You wear an Armani suit and sign up for a subscription wine service. You make monthly payments on your law school loans and go to step aerobics after work. Because you can, you buy yourself a Saab. Is there anything to question? It doesn’t seem that way. You’re a lawyer now. You’ve taken everything ever given to you—the love of your parents, the faith of your teachers, the music from Southside and Robbie, the meals from Aunt Sis, the vocabulary words drilled into you by Dandy—and converted it to this. You’ve climbed the mountain. And part of your job, aside from parsing abstract intellectual property issues for big corporations, is to help cultivate the next set of young lawyers being courted by the firm. A senior partner asks if you’ll mentor an incoming summer associate, and the answer is easy: Of course you will. You have yet to understand the altering force of a simple yes. You don’t know that when a memo arrives to confirm the assignment, some deep and unseen fault line in your life has begun to tremble, that some hold is already starting to slip. Next to your name is another name, that of some hotshot law student who’s busy climbing his own ladder. Like you, he’s black and from Harvard. Other than that, you know nothing—just the name, and it’s an odd one. Barack.

Someone once told me, ‘The brightest smiles bring us the greatest of joys. The loudest laughter is like a grand orchestra, and the most beautiful faces are covered in makeup, because we are okay, and everything is fine. The brightest smile is like a bandage, it looks okay, but inside the wound still festers, asking to be cut off. They say laughter is the best medicine. And the mask is our way of making ourselves look more beautiful, to reduce our flaws and hide our scars. When the smiles fade away and the bandage is ripped off; when the laughter is silenced and the music stops, when the makeup is washed away, and our mask fades, we find that we were never truly okay.

said he figured she had maybe fifteen or twenty outfits, four hundred bucks an outfit, maybe eight grand in total. Truth was she had thirty-four business suits in her closet. She’d worked three years on Wall Street. She had eight grand tied up in the shoes alone. Four hundred bucks was what she had spent on a blouse, and that was when she felt driven by native common sense to be a little economical. She liked Armani. She had thirteen of his spring suits. Spring clothes from Milan were just about right for most of the Chicago summer. Maybe in the really fierce heat of August she’d break out her Moschino shifts, but June and July, September too if she was lucky, her Armanis were the thing. Her favorites were the dark peach shades she’d bought in her last year in the brokerage house. Some mysterious Italian blend of silks. Cut and tailored by people whose ancestors had been fingering fine materials for hundreds of years. They look at it and consider it and cut it and it just falls into marvelous soft shapes. Then they market it and a Wall Street broker buys it and loves it and is still wearing it two years into the future when she’s a new FBI agent and she gets snatched off a Chicago street. She’s still wearing it eighteen hours later after a sleepless night on the filthy straw in a cow barn. By that point, the thing is no longer something that Armani would recognize.

The moment Dario Armani’s gaze roams up my legs to finally meet my stare, I know I’m about to ruin his fucking night.

He swallows everything around him, his height and width an imposing contrast. Everything else ceases to exist when Luca Armani steps into a room.

Luca Armani is a man I know inside and out—even simply watching him from afar.

The Argentine critic Beatriz Sarlo says that part of the charm of modern shopping malls (el shopping as they say in Argentina) derives from establishing a contact with products you can’t buy but which are right there before your eyes. Like television, the mall follows a “logic of celebrity.” Just because you don’t have the money to buy Armani clothes doesn’t mean you can’t admire and even touch them.

Is this real? Am I really fucking Luca Armani right now?

Mr Armani is waiting for you inside.” “Because that’s not eerie as shit,” I say under my breath.

Talk about fucking awkward.” I unbuttoned my Armani suit jacket, flapping it back to take a seat on the first pew overlooking my wife’s open casket. For the first second, I waited for her to scold me for dropping the F-bomb, and then reality came crashing in.

Even if a rat dresses in Armani, the stink of the sewer is still all over him.

God, this man is too damn precious. He’s like if a golden retriever came to life and started wearing bespoke Armani suits. And here I was grilling Rachel about needing an exit. What’s the point? No matter where I might take her, this man will just follow us. Jake Compton Price is Rachel’s end game. I have absolutely nothing to worry about by putting her happiness in his hands.

You just know it’s going to be a bad day when Armani’s planned a girls’ night out.

I open my mouth to say thank you, but the words catch in my throat. Two broad bodies walk through the door quietly chatting among themselves. Each dawning similar grey Armani suits and crisp ties that match InnoTech’s color scheme. But it’s not them that have the air in my lungs evaporating. It’s who’s behind them. No. No. No. Alarm bells in my head start ringing and I can feel a trickle of sweat form along my neck. Of all the people in this city he has to work here? Of course, he does.

No te lleves nada a la tumba; gástatelo todo. Death doesn’t care if you show up rocking an Armani suit and a Rolex or if you show up naked. Neither should you.

Could I do it? Could I sign away my soul to a monster in Armani?

Little that Brunetti had observed during his own undistinguished term of military service or in the decades since then had persuaded him that Paola was wrong. Brunetti realized that not much he had seen could persuade him that the military, either Italian or foreign, was much different from the Mafia: dominated by men and unfriendly to women; incapable of honour or even simple honesty beyond its own ranks; dedicated to the acquisition of power; contemptuous of civil society; violent and cowardly at the same time. No, there was little to distinguish one organization from the other, save that some wore easily recognized uniforms while the other leaned toward Armani and Brioni.

All’eccesso? O sei rigoroso o non lo sei. E a me piace il rigore. Luis Miguel Marco, Dominical, 2 ottobre 2011

Camera three zoomed in at the right angle showing in graphic HD quality the minister’s tongue falling on the floor with blood spraying his $2,000 Armani shirt and $2,000 tie.

Camera three zoomed in at the right angle showing in graphic HD quality the minister’s tongue falling on the floor with blood spraying his $2,000 Armani shirt and $2,000 tie. Camera four zoomed in to film Bobby’s eyes bulging from their sockets until they exploded into a viscous cloud of grisly liquid. More blood began to stream from his nose and ears as the meteor shower ended, and the sky began to brighten. Finally, the beleaguered religious icon teetered in his Gucci loafers, then toppled to the floor.

Mi interés es unir el confort al sentido práctico. En esto ha consistido mi revolución en el vestir: en poner en primer plano las necesidades prácticas de la gente” Giorgio Armani.                 La

Cuando salió, no lo vio. Solo quedaban los restos de una noche con compañía masculina. Raquel empezó a buscar entre su extensa colección de stilettos un par que combinara con su traje negro de Armani. —¿Te apetece un zumito, reina? —El camarero de El Confidente traía una bandeja con dos vasos de zumo recién exprimido, un par de cafés aguados y unas tostadas—. Tu despensa es una calamidad, chica. No sé cómo puedes tomarte este café soluble asquerosillo. Y tampoco tienes bollos, ni nada que ponerle a las tostadas… —Pues comes lo que te apetezca cuando salgas a la calle. —¡Joder! Pero qué bordes sois las tías… Eso es culpa del feminismo. Si no fuera por esa demagogia feministilla, serías tú quien me hiciera el desayuno y además te quedarías calladita y sonriendo a tu macho. —Si no fuera por el feminismo, no podrías tirarte a todas tus clientas, rico. Miguel soltó una carcajada sonora y franca. —¡Me hago feminista! ¿Dónde me hago el carné de socio? —repuso levantando el brazo. A Raquel se le escapó una risa resignada. Cogió unos zapatos cerrados de Jimmy Choo con estampado de cebra, punta estrecha y tacón altísimo.

When we lose that sense of the possible we lose it fast. One day we are absorbed by dressing well, following the news, keeping up, coping, what we might call staying alive; the next day we are not. One day we are turning the pages of whatever has arrived in the day’s mail with real enthusiasm—maybe it is Vogue, maybe it is Foreign Affairs, whatever it is we are intensely interested, pleased to have this handbook to keeping up, this key to staying alive—yet the next day we are walking uptown on Madison past Barney’s and Armani or on Park past the Council on Foreign Relations and we are not even glancing at their windows.

Why the fuck did I know what any of these terms meant, you might wonder? Because my soulless arse did Armani and Balmain campaigns to support a cocaine habit that made Charlie Sheen look like a Boy Scout.

To him, the most valuable thing in his life is being the most valuable person in yours.

The city looked marvelous with its dazzling skyscrapers. I felt lost within the Big Apple. The never-ending attractions were calling me. The streets were filled with people. It was like the world was touching the sky. The paths didn’t seem to stop anywhere. There were platforms of happiness and shops of dreams: Prada, Zara, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Givenchy, Jimmy Choo, Versace, Dior, Bloomingdale, all of them. There was no lack of fun and happiness. Yet in the entire city, there was a strange silence, a cold passion. Every set of eyes seemed to be lonely. Everyone was together yet disconnected and I felt so miserable that I puked while we were passing Macy’s in the cab.

A lot of Designers are Italian, and all their names, as in the case of Sindhis, end with an ‘I’ sound, as in Armani, Hugo Bossini, and Rohit Balini.

It’s as if you were interested in fashion and your neighbor when you were growing up happened to be Giorgio Armani.

Local NGOs are like high-fashion boutiques. They sell very high-quality products – the Prada bag, the Armani frock – to a small number of people at very high prices.

They turned their attention to the wardrobe that held several Armani suits, all of them individually tailored to fit Humpty’s unique stature and held up on hangers shaped like hula hoops.

Oh, maybe Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen is my hero. He’s like Zorba the Buddha. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the Indian guru who I think was murdered by American government and who later changed his name to Osho, he had this notion of a character called Zorba the Buddha who — we’ll say a man, but it could be a woman too — who was contemplative, led a serene spiritual life, meditated a lot, was a nonviolent, placid person who lived in the spirit but who also knew how to work and make money, knew how to utilize the Internet, knew how much to tip a maître d’ in a Paris nightclub, who was of the world and enjoyed the world and all of its sensual pleasures in terms of food, sex, drink, color, art, but also at the same time was deeply spiritual. And I’ve kind of superimposed that Zorba the Buddha figure onto Leonard Cohen, perhaps unfairly, but he strikes me as someone who is close to that figure. I like the fact that he meditates, that he has spent time alone — a lot of it in anguish in a Buddhist monastery — that he is so adept with language and loves women and wears beautiful Armani suits and will sit and sip wine at a sidewalk café with beautiful girls and yet be able to have this rich inner life, not just creatively but also spiritually.

Jonathan Green had a firm handshake, clear eyes, and a jawline not dissimilar to Dudley Do-Right’s. He was in his early sixties, with graying hair, a beach-club tan, and a voice that was rich and comforting. A minister’s voice. He wasn’t a handsome man, but there was a sincerity in his eyes that put you at ease. Jonathan Green was reputed to be one of the top five criminal defense attorneys in America, with a success rate in high-profile criminal defense cases of one hundred percent. Like Elliot Truly, Jonathan Green was wearing an impeccably tailored blue Armani suit. So were the lesser attorneys. Maybe they got a bulk discount. I was wearing impeccably tailored black Gap jeans, a linen aloha shirt, and white Reebok sneakers. Green said, “Did Elliot explain why we wanted to see you?

Provo un po’ di invidia per chi non ha grossi impegni e la sera, alle cinque e mezza, stacca.