Giorgio Armani is that rare thing: a fashion designer who makes women look good. In an industry dominated by garish colour schemes and impossible silhouettes, Armani ploughs his own elegantly understated fashion furrow. As a result, his is a broad church, coveted by A-list superstars such as Cate Blanchett, Katie Holmes, Beyoncé Knowles and George Clooney to ordinary men and women in search of something special. Armani's clients reach for him when they want to look sexy but not tarty, serious but not boring, elegant but not ostentatious. Whatever else happens, one thing is sure: you will never be overdressed in Armani.

Crucially, in a world of expanding waistlines, his core talent for tailoring means that he can flatter almost anyone: he has made many a silk purse out of a sow's ear. “I care about making women look beautiful, not fashion victims,” he has said.

And it's true: commercially, he is almost trend-proof, a factor that goes some way to explaining why, at the age of 73 and after almost 40 years in the business, this one-time medical student is still a global name in fashion, a man with monster brand recognition, multiple clothing ranges and fingers in all kinds of pies, from football to interior design. That, and the fact that however much beige bores you, no one can deny that Armani's fashion moment, straddling 15 years between the release of American Gigolo in 1980 to mid-Nineties minimalism, was one of the greatest in fashion history.

All of which makes him naturally unpopular with the fashion press, which dislikes overt commercialism and becomes bored and cantankerous if envelopes are not being sufficiently pushed. Armani, with his safe palette and restrained shaping, doesn't play the game. Hence, perhaps, his barbed comment about Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of American Vogue, at a press conference earlier this week to announce a forthcoming exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He expressed puzzlement as to why “so many people dislike Wintour”, adding that he, personally, had no problem with the lady, despite the fact that “I was told she once said, ‘The Armani era is over'.”

The fashion pack love a good spat, and it doesn't come better than this. In truth, however, being on the wrong side of Armani is not something that Wintour is entirely unfamiliar with, nor is she the only fashion editor to have experienced his disapproval. It has become almost a mark of recognition, a badge of honour, to be in hot water with the maestro, even to be banned from an Armani show. Falling out with and then seeking the redemption of the great man is a rite of passage that seems only to increase an editor's standing - and add to Armani's mythical, almost god-like status.

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