I love sophisticated simplicity, preferring a sobriety that may even appear eccentric, but I owe a lot of my success to red carpet events. That’s where my name has become synonymous with a certain take on glamour: modern, pared down, yet brimming with magic. Stardust attracts the public and makes them dream. It also makes them think. More than ever, the red carpet has become a place for protest as well as ostentation and stardom. In my long career, honestly, I never thought that we would take things this far and I’m really impressed. The transformation of an occasion of pure entertainment into an opportunity to push for change, as is happening with the #MeToo movement, is a turning point. But we live in a hyped-up era, so the combination of protest and glamour is a logical development.

Every era needs new tools to represent and express itself

However, in my personal experience, I must say that the red carpet was always an opportunity for developing new ideas and thus for progress. In fact, everything to do with aesthetics and style has a profound impact on society. Fashion anticipates changes, or facilitates them. I can vouch for that first hand. I very naturally encountered red carpet events in the 80s – it was a more innocent and spontaneous climate than today. By 1978 Diane Keaton, for one, had chosen to wear an Armani jacket to collect her Academy Award and I was known to Hollywood through my work on American Gigolo. It was a mutual attraction, which created a lasting dialogue. Before that, in fact, fashion designers and international red carpet occasions hardly crossed paths.

Isabelle Huppert at the Oscars in 2017. Photograph: Tyler Golden/ABC via Getty Images

Today, we all take this relationship for granted. In those pioneering years, I became the go-to designer for the new Hollywood, with next to no interest in sequins, feathers and the excesses of the immediate past. In its golden age, Hollywood still called on studio costume designers to provide the clothes for special occasions. The industry was in love with the exaggerated theatricality of the image of the star. However, the young actors emerging into the limelight in the 80s had rather different ambitions and expectations, and a completely different idea of their image. They were uninhibited, natural and knowingly sceptical about stardom. I am thinking, for example, of Diane Keaton, or Lauren Hutton, Richard Gere, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Human beings first and actors and actresses second, they sought a new way to present themselves both socially and professionally, as we all did in that period of momentous change. These men and women turned to me, immediately intuiting that a new, natural and essential elegance could help them be stars but not slip into anachronistic excesses. I am not making any judgment on the old Hollywood, whose powerful imagination I have always admired, but just reflecting on the inevitability of change. Every era needs new tools to represent and express itself.

The young actors who emerged then are today’s establishment. It took more than three decades. Thirty years in which I grew up as a designer while I saw many of those new stars – who in the meantime had become friends – grow and succeed professionally. I met new stars, also outside Hollywood, and continued dressing them while staying true to my idea of elegance as I observed the changing times.

The most glittering moments in my career as a designer for the most important red carpets have left an indelible store of memories, just like any successful fashion show. I am thinking of Jodie Foster, who in 1992 received the Academy Award in my trouser suit, leaving everyone else in the dust with their trains and big ribbons. Or Sharon Stone at the Academy Awards in 1996, gorgeous in a sober and very long black velvet coat. Then today there is Cate Blanchett, radiant in one of my glittery but restrained dresses, or Isabelle Huppert, so chic that she can carry off a beret at the Met Ball. I am thinking of Sean Penn, Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diane Kruger and Marion Cotillard. I am thinking of Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway and Gal Gadot, but also the perennially gorgeous, wonderful Claudia Cardinale and Sophia Loren, who I dress with an eye to glamour, putting the accent mainly on personality.

Giorgio Armani with Michelle Pfeiffer in 2003. Photograph: Emanuele Scorcelletti

For me, it is only meaningful to work on red carpet events if I can build a relationship with the people I dress. If Jodie, Michelle, Julia, Sharon, Sean, Robert, Claudia, Sophia, Cate and Isabelle have remained faithful and regular customers to this day, it’s because our bond emerged spontaneously out of affinities of taste and character, and grew from there. I could never dress a man or a woman, famous or not, who I didn’t feel to be in tune with what I do. Moreover, I also think that anyone interested in the Armani style is interested because they genuinely love what I do, not because they feel they have to be: gaudy and vulgar people would never understand the essence of my work. That’s how you create a lasting dialogue. It happened in the early years and continues today with the important contribution of my niece Roberta. I support the causes advocated by these artists and will continue to do so, also at red carpet events.

Vulgar people would never understand the essence of my work

In the last decade, excessive attention on the red carpet, and the consequent hype, have perhaps turned the style clock back, dusting off and even outdoing the over-the-top glamour of the old Hollywood. So I really welcomed the all-black dress code this awards season, in support of the #MeToo movement, which seeks to bring change and greater humanity, and a soberer style that goes beyond the reasons for the protest. At root, this all leads back to my idea of unfussy elegance. The best red carpet occasion in 2018 would therefore be the simplest and most natural, but also the most sophisticated. I envisage it studded with true stars who appear as themselves, not as performers or celebrities. This doesn’t mean any sacrifice of elegance – an overlooked but always contemporary quality. This is what I have always done, and it is perhaps time for everyone to do it.