Giorgio Armani, the visionary Italian designer who has died at the age of 91, founded the world’s largest private luxury brand by indulging in minimalism and pioneering the idea that Hollywood could be a branding platform for fashion labels.

For more than perhaps any other designer, il signor Armani understood that fashion was not only about clothes but lifestyle, and changed not only how men and women dress, but how they ate, travelled and decorated their homes, reshaping the fashion industry in the process.

Born in Piacenza, south of Milan, in 1934, Armani was the second of three children. His family moved to Italy’s fashion capital in the 1950s just as he dropped out of medical school and joined the design team at luxury department store La Rinascente as a window dresser.