MILAN (AP) — Giorgio Armani’s niece Silvana Armani took up her uncle’s mantle with quiet confidence, presenting the first signature collection without the input of the iconic founding designer to close Milan Fashion Week on Sunday.
Actor Andie MacDowell, 67, was among the front-row guests for a show that represented a new chapter for the Giorgio Armani fashion group, following the designer's death Sept. 4 at age 91.
Click to Gallery
A model wears a creation from the Giorgio Armani Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A model wears a creation from the Giorgio Armani Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A model wears a creation from the Giorgio Armani Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Models wear creations from the Giorgio Armani Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Silvana Armani is greeted by the public at the end of the Giorgio Armani Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
“One of the things that is really important to me is representing women of a certain age, and showing that we still are fashionable and powerful and strong, and we enjoy life and looking beautiful,’’ MacDowell said as she arrived for the show wearing a dark Armani suit with a three-dimensional rose detail.
"I love this because I was born Rosalie Anderson MacDowell, and I thought this suit was made for me. It makes me feel really elegant," she said.
The Giorgio Armani women’s winter wardrobe for next fall and winter was fluid, essential and wholly contemporary, expressing the fashion house’s essence. To point, there was no jewelry, save pins with the zodiac sign for Cancer, for the late designer's birth sign.
Opening looks were in an urban slate gray, softened by silken blouses with foulard detailing around the neck. A burgundy belt gave color and structure, while knitwear with the slightest scoop neck maintained discipline. Long overcoats grazed the runway.
As for her uncle, Silvan Armani made soft yet tailored jackets the backbone of the collection, including quilted Japanese-style jackets and colorful shearling coats. They were complemented with fluid trousers, some with side pleats for volume. Winter white trousers with silken high-neck blouses and anoraks suggested an active lifestyle, as did the cozy knitwear, cross-body bags and tinted eyewear.
The color palette shifted to burgundy and midnight blue, the new black. Velvet looks accented with beaded embroidery gave cozy elegance, while eveningwear featured iridescent corsets that sat slightly away from the body.
Even the dressier looks were worn with cross-body satchels, suggesting that the Giorgio Armani woman wasn’t waiting at home for evening festivities to begin.
Silvana Armani, 70, said after the show that the collection contained looks that she would wear herself.
“Working with fluidity and simplicity came naturally to me, because that’s how I am,” said Armani, who like her uncle took her bows in a navy sweater and trousers.
Silvana Armani also collaborated with Leo Dell’Orco, as Armani's creative heirs, in a crisp Emporio Armani co-ed collection that previewed on Thursday.
The Armani Theater floor was covered in wood to recall a music conservatory, the inspiration for a collection that drew on British formality with Italian sensibility. Tailcoats and waistcoats evoked performance, while denim grounded the looks and gave them fresh modernity.
The show closed with a striking finale of starched white shirts and impeccable black tie, drawing long, warm applause for the creative duo.
Olympic medal winners from Team Italia took front-row seats. They were outfitted for the Feb. 6-22 Games in EA7 Emporio Armani performance athleticwear.
A model wears a creation from the Giorgio Armani Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A model wears a creation from the Giorgio Armani Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A model wears a creation from the Giorgio Armani Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Models wear creations from the Giorgio Armani Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Silvana Armani is greeted by the public at the end of the Giorgio Armani Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Milan, Italy, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran vowed revenge Sunday after the killing of its supreme leader and traded strikes with Israel as part of a widening war prompted by a surprise U.S. and Israeli bombardment. The U.S. military said three service members have been killed, the first known American casualties from the conflict.
Blasts in Tehran sent a huge plume of smoke into the sky in an area of government buildings. Iranian authorities say more than 200 people have been killed since the start of the U.S. and Israeli strikes that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior leaders. Iran fired missiles at targets in Israel and Gulf Arab states in retaliation while Israel pledged "non-stop" strikes against Iran's leaders and military.
In Israel, loud explosions caused by missile impacts or interceptions could be heard in Tel Aviv. Israel’s rescue services said nine people were killed and 28 wounded in a strike that hit a synagogue in the central town of Beit Shemesh, bringing the overall death toll in the country to 11. Eleven people were still missing after the strike, police said, as rescue crews combed the rubble.
The strikes and counterattacks underscored how the killing of Khamenei, and U.S. President Donald Trump ’s calls for the overthrow of the decades-old Islamic Republic, carried the potential for a prolonged conflict that could envelop the Middle East. It also represents a startling show of military might for an American president who swept into office on an “America First” platform and vowed to keep out of “forever wars.”
In Tehran, there was little sign that Iranians had heeded Trump's call for an uprising against the government.
The streets were largely deserted as people sheltered during heavy airstrikes, witnesses told The Associated Press, speaking anonymously for fear of retribution. The paramilitary Basij, which has played a central role in crushing protests, has set up checkpoints across the city, they said.
The U.S. military said three service members were killed and five others seriously wounded, without providing further details. It said several others suffered minor injuries and concussions.
In the 12-day war last June, Israeli and American strikes greatly weakened Iran’s air defenses, military leadership and nuclear program. But the killing of Khamenei, who had ruled Iran for more than three decades, creates a leadership vacuum, increasing the risk of regional instability.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a prerecorded message that a new leadership council had begun its work. The country's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said a new supreme leader would be chosen in “one or two days.”
As word spread of Khamenei’s death, some in Tehran could be seen cheering from rooftops, witnesses said. Others mourned as a black flag was raised over the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad.
“You have crossed our red line and must pay the price,” Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said in a televised address. “We will deliver such devastating blows that you yourselves will be driven to beg.”
Trump warned against retaliation.
“THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT,” he said in a social media post. “IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!”
In a sign of how the attack could stoke regional unrest, hundreds of people stormed the U.S. Consulate in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi. Police and paramilitary forces used batons and fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, and at least nine people were killed in the clashes, authorities said.
As U.S. and Israeli strikes have pounded Iran, the Islamic Republic has retaliated with missiles and drone attacks on Israel and nearby Arab Gulf countries hosting U.S. forces.
The air war could rattle global markets, particularly if Iran makes the Strait of Hormuz unsafe for commercial traffic. Around 20% of the world's traded oil passes through the vital waterway.
While Iran struck U.S. bases in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, the attacks have also hit outside of military installations, including a hotel in the Emirati city of Dubai, and Kuwait’s international airport. At least four people have been killed in strikes on Gulf countries.
Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, blamed such strikes on the U.S. and Israel for starting the war. He said he had spoken to his counterparts in the Gulf countries and urged them to pressure the U.S. and Israel to end it.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that Israel will have “a non-stop air train” of strikes against Iranian military and leadership targets. The U.S. military said it had struck an Iranian warship at a port on the Gulf of Oman that was now sinking.
Flights across the Middle East were disrupted, and air defense fire thudded over Dubai. The United Arab Emirates’ commercial capital has long drawn business and expatriates by billing itself as a safe haven in a volatile region.
As supreme leader, Khamenei had final say on all major policies since 1989. He led Iran’s clerical establishment and the Revolutionary Guard, the two main centers of power in the governing theocracy.
An Iranian medical professional in northern Iran said he and colleagues spent the early hours of Sunday celebrating Khamenei's death indoors because armed security forces are still heavily deployed in his city.
There were forces stopping and interrogating people celebrating in their cars but there was no gunfire, said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
“It was one of the best nights, if not the best night of our lives,” the doctor said in a voice message from the city of Rasht. In fact, “it was actually my first time ever smoking a cigarette. It was a very very nice time. We didn’t sleep at all. And we don’t even feel tired.”
In southern Iran, at least 115 people were reported killed when a girls’ school was struck, and dozens more were wounded, the local governor told Iranian state TV. The Israeli military said it was not aware of strikes in the area. The U.S. military said it was looking into the reports.
Tensions have escalated in recent weeks as the Trump administration built up the largest force of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades. The president insisted he wanted a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program while the country struggled with growing dissent following nationwide protests.
Democrats decried that Trump had taken action without congressional authorization. The White House said it had briefed several Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress in advance.
Though Trump had pronounced the Iranian nuclear program obliterated in strikes last year, the country was rebuilding infrastructure that it had lost, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss Trump’s decision-making process. The official said intelligence showed that Iran had developed the capability to produce its own high-quality centrifuges, an important step in developing the highly enriched uranium needed for weapons.
Iran has said it has not enriched since June, though it has maintained its right to do so while saying its nuclear program is entirely peaceful. It has also blocked international inspectors from visiting the sites the U.S. bombed. Satellite photos analyzed by AP have shown new activity at two of those sites.
Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel; Boak from West Palm Beach, Florida; and Tucker from Washington. Associated Press writers Joe Federman in Jerusalem, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Amir Radjy in Cairo, Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin in Washington, Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, Farnoush Amiri in New York, David Rising in Bangkok and AP journalists around the world contributed to this report.
Shiite Muslims hold the portraits of Iranian leaders during a rally to condemn the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Iraqis hold a portrait of Iranian supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a protest against U.S. and Israeli attacks on multiple cities across Iran, at a bridge leading to the fortified Green Zone where the U.S. Embassy is located, in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Israeli air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over central Israel, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over central Israel, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Government supporters chant slogans as they gather in mourning after state TV officially announced the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A plume of smoke rises after a strike in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Smoke rises up after a strike in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Government supporters gather in mourning after state TV officially announced the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Government supporters chant slogans as they gather in mourning after state TV officially announced the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shown in the poster, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Government supporters gather in mourning after state TV officially announced the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Rescue workers and military personnel survey the scene of a direct hit a day after an Iranian missile struck in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A government supporter holds a picture of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a gathering after state TV officially announced the death of Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Israel's air defense missile fires to intercept missiles from Iran over Israel, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Government supporters mourn in a gathering after state TV officially announced the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Government supporters chant slogans as they gather in mourning after state TV officially announced the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
