Italy's Fashion Gurus May Take On Sydney Chic To Chic

Sydney Morning Herald

Sunday August 27, 1995

By NICOLE LEHMANN

Wherever in the world Armani goes, Versace follows. And now Italian fashion's godfathers are staking out massive floor spaces in Sydney within cooee of each other.

Following the successful launch of the less-expensive Emporio Armani label in Martin Place last year, the Armani camp appeared determined to maintain its ascendancy.

A 432-square-metre Giorgio Armani boutique will open in October in the Queens Club building on the corner of Elizabeth and Market streets in the city.

Couture, like that which will be for sale at the new shops, is usually priced from about $2,500 for a single piece to $15,000 to $30,000 for an evening gown.

Negotiations are under way on the Gianni Versace shop, which is tipped to open in the Castlereagh Street shopping plaza of the Sheraton on the Park Hotel.

A Sheraton on the Park spokesman, Mr Bob Chambers, would neither confirm nor deny the opening of the Versace store there, but said a decision would be announced within a month.

The long-running rivalry between Armani and Versace has them simultaneously conquering other retail centres of the world and reacting to each other's directional changes with uncanny synchronicity.

Even though these emperors of the Italian fashion forum both have their headquarters in Milan, cultural and stylistic differences keep them worlds apart. While the suavely subtle tailoring of Giorgio Armani smacks of the North, the racy, outspoken, eccentric Gianni Versace, with his love of splashy hot colour, is clearly a son of his native Sicily.

In the past, Versace, the designer who has attacked "designers whose homosexuality makes them dress women like men", once dismissed Armani as simply belonging to another age. Versace has said they are exact opposites, in work and in life.

"He is sad. I am happy. I am in a beautiful house, he likes all white."

Alternately, there are those in Armani circles who say that the Versace "V" stands for "vulgar".

It is understood that a Singapore businessman will win the franchise for the Sydney Versace store. Two previous smaller-scale launches of Versace in Australia have ended in bankruptcy.

The Armani store will be the second Armani Sydney operation for Club 21, a Singapore-based company which holds agencies to more than 40 designer labels - half of which are Italian. It is part of the massive empire of fashion tycoon Mr Ong Beng Seng, also known as the "Chinese sheikh" and the "invisible Ong".

His wife, Christina, the daughter of one of Asia's biggest oil traders, heads Club 21 and is described by Singapore's business press as the "undisputed queen of high fashion business". Together, the Ongs are said to control up to 20 per cent of Simint SPA, the fashion group of Giorgio Armani.

© 1995 Sydney Morning Herald

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