By Giulia Segreti and Keith Weir

ROME (Reuters) -It all began with the jacket. Giorgio Armani twisted and bruised the angular piece of clothing – tearing out the padding, adjusting the proportions, moving the buttons – until he was left with something supple as a cardigan, light as a shirt.

“Removing all rigidity from the garment and discovering an unexpected naturalness,” as he put it years later. “It was the starting point for everything that came after.”

His 1970s reimagining of the jacket – a study in nonchalance – was to be his statement of purpose as a fashion designer.

Elegance, he argued, meant simplicity. That principle, applied to great acclaim over a five-decade-long career, would produce bestselling minimalist suits and turn his eponymous brand into a vast conglomerate prod

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