With 'Echoes of Armani'

MILAN - When performers start titling their efforts 'whispers,' 'memories' or 'echoes' - like the 'Echoes of Armani' show Tuesday - you can usually expect the farewell tour.

Giorgio Armani, on the other hand, isn't going anywhere. As he has said many times in the press, Mr. Armani, who turns 80 in two weeks, probably will work until he drops. And he will continue to comb through his fertile back pages for ideas, motifs and gestures that have kept him in the game since the 1980 film 'American Gigolo' and the body-hugging power suit.

One reason Mr. Armani remains by far the most successful designer ever to come out of Italy is his conviction that his original design note was pitched correctly. And he clearly was onto something because reverberations have rippled outward ever since.

Though the soft suiting we all now take for granted didn't start with him, it was Mr. Armani who adapted core elements of traditional Neapolitan tailoring - natural shoulders, form-fitting suits, the use of half-linings and pliable, rather than rigid, woolens - and sold them to the world.

That he can still put it across was made clear by both Giorgio Armani and Emporio Armani this week, where, in shows spaced several days apart, Mr. Armani and his team gave evidence of having appraised a design brief in need of invigoration and then provided a jolt.

They did it with monochrome graphics. In an Emporio show emptily titled 'Avant Garde,' and enough prolonged to give Marina Abramovic a run for her money in terms of duration (more than 100 looks), Mr. Armani sent out peacoats, snug bombers, mackintoshes, shiny shirts with short sleeves and shoulders that were fused rather than stitched. Hatches, slashes, windowpane checks, fishnet patterns and lane-divider stripes covered almost everything.

The full, pleated trousers the designer prefers had been tapered to follow the now nearly universal fashion for a narrow leg. On the best style, a single skinny line of contrasting color traced the crease of the pants. Happily, the thick-soled white sneakers and paddock boots - more appealing than any footwear Mr. Armani has offered in some time - were free of hectic patterns. A man needs some place to rest his eye when he crosses his legs.