The life and career of Giorgio Armani will be the subject of a high-profile television series produced by Italian company Lux Vide, which collaborates with the fashion house founded by the iconic designer known for his close ties to Hollywood.

The as-yet-untitled Armani biographical series, which will be adapted for the international market, has featured Turkey-born, Italy-based director Ferzan Ozpetek, known for combining artistic depth with box office appeal.

Ozpetek, who knew Armani personally, recently scored a global hit with the 2025 film “Diamonds,” about a group of good-hearted women in a Rome atelier who rush to fulfill a demanding order from an Oscar-winning costume designer client in the 1970s. “Diamonds” was a big hit at the local box office and traveled widely. Ozpetek’s television experience includes Disney+’s first Italian original series of 2022, “The Ignorant Angels,” a romantic drama spin-off of its local hit “Ignorant Fairies.”

“I knew, admired and spent time with Giorgio for many years, both on official occasions and in more private settings,” Ozpetek said in a statement to Variety. “We talked about cinema, of which he was passionate and an expert. But also about art, costumes, architecture and, I would say, life itself. I could see in him a visionary and a brilliant artist. But also a man with his feet on the ground and very determined.”

The director added: “The opportunity to tell his story is both an exciting honor and a challenge that involves capturing the many facets of such a complex, original and captivating personality.”

Ozpetek is co-writing the script for the Armani series in collaboration with Lux Vide head writer Francesco Arlanch, whose credits include Lux’s widely exported series “Medici,” “Hotel Costiera” and the medical drama “Doc.” The stories and structure of the series are being kept secret.

Known worldwide as the Milan-based fashion pioneer with piercing blue eyes and a vision that combined relaxed elegance and attention to detail, Armani first made his mark with the unlined sports jackets and deconstructed suits worn by Richard Gere in 1980’s “American Gigolo.” But Armani also reinvented the women’s power suit. He dressed dozens of female Hollywood stars, including Julia Roberts, Diane Keaton, Jodie Foster, Cate Blanchett, Lupita Nyong’o, Anne Hathaway and Michelle Yeoh, both in minimalist outfits, like the Armani men’s suit that Julia Roberts wore when she won a Golden Globe for “Steel Magnolias” in 1990, and in sparkling dresses like the crystal-encrusted sequin “Nairobi blue” dress that Lupita wore. Nyong’o at the 2024 Academy Awards. The long list of male actors who routinely wore Armani on red carpets and also on screen includes Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Russell Crowe, Robert De Niro and Tom Cruise, to name a few.

His Hollywood connection earned Armani costume film credits in more than 200 films.

Armani, a self-made man who owned his $10 billion fashion empire at the time of his death on September 4, 2025 at age 91, was known for often appearing in dark pants and his signature black T-shirt. He was born in the northern Italian city of Piacenza on July 11, 1934. After two decades in the fashion industry starting in 1957, he and his partner Sergio Galeotti sold their Volkswagen for $10,000 to start their own men’s ready-to-wear brand. They launched both men’s and women’s lines the following year.

Armani, very reserved, rarely talked about his personal life. She told Vanity Fair that she had affairs with both men and women. She maintained a long-term relationship with Galeotti until his AIDS-related death in 1985.

Fashion house Giorgio Armani has agreed to support the production of the Fremantle television series, providing access to its “archives, creations and iconic locations, offering an unrivaled insight into the world and legacy of one of fashion’s most influential figures,” according to a statement from Fremantle.

“For years, Lux had been pursuing the dream of telling the world the story of Giorgio Armani, an artist who invented a unique and recognizable style,” Lux Vide president Matilde Bernabei said in a statement. He went on to describe Armani as “a standard bearer of Made in Italy who rewrote the rules of style and elegance.”

“It will be an ambitious series,” added Bernabei, “and we are proud to know that the market has immediately welcomed this project with interest, enthusiastically confirming its international potential.”