Milano Cortina 2026 opens with tribute to Giorgio Armani

Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics opened Friday with an emotional tribute to Giorgio Armani, who died in September 2025 at age 91.x
Sixty models in monochromatic Armani suits formed the Italian flag, while supermodel Vittoria Ceretti presented the tricolore to the honor guard.x
Armani’s partnership with Team Italy began in 2012, and he completed the milky white Olympic uniforms before his death.montenapodaily

Giorgio Armani Honored at Milano Cortina 2026 Opening Ceremony

The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics began Friday with a moving tribute to Giorgio Armani, the legendary fashion designer who died in September 2025 at age 91. Models wearing his signature loosely-tailored suits in green, white, and red formed a living Italian flag at the San Siro Stadium in Milan, as Laura Pausini performed a stirring rendition of “Fratelli d’Italia.”

The tribute was the emotional centerpiece of an Opening Ceremony themed around “Armonia”—harmony—and represented what Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026 President Giovanni Malagò called a choice “long overdue, for the city of Milan and the entire country.”yahoo

A Fashion Icon’s Final Olympic Legacy

Armani’s connection to Italian Olympic sport began at the London 2012 Games, when his EA7 Emporio Armani line became the official outfitter for Team Italy—a partnership that continued unbroken through four Olympic cycles. Before his death from liver failure at his Milan home on September 4, 2025, Armani completed his final Olympic collection: milky white uniforms featuring three-dimensional “Italia” lettering, which he described as embodying “respect, simplicity, cleanliness, purity.”montenapodaily

According to the Armani Group, 60 models in monochromatic Giorgio Armani trouser suits came together to form the Italian national flag—”a powerful image of unity, elegance, and identity.”x

Vittoria Ceretti Carries the Tricolore

Italian supermodel Vittoria Ceretti, 27, concluded the tribute by presenting the Italian flag to the Corazzieri, the Italian Carabinieri’s ceremonial honor guard. Ceretti wore a custom-made white Armani Privé gown with dramatic sleeves and a high neck—a fitting choice that echoed the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, when model Carla Bruni wore a sparkling Armani gown while carrying the flag.reddit

The tribute transformed San Siro’s field into a runway, with waves of models in green, white, and red preceding Ceretti, according to Italian outlet iO Donna.iodonna

Milan’s Fashion Heritage Takes Center Stage

Armani’s legacy as “one of the founders of Italian ready-to-wear fashion” made him uniquely tied to Milan, the city hosting the Opening Ceremony. The Armani Group said in a September 2025 statement that he “worked until his final days” and was “an indefatigable driving force.”cnn

His absence from Milan Fashion Week in June 2025—the first time in his career he missed his own runway show—signaled his declining health in the months before his death.wikipedia