Giorgio gets his kicks aged 66

chiffon blouses. Men and women interacting on the runway in a sensually-charged mating ritual . . . We may have seen it all before in a fashion show. But rarely, if ever, have we seen it in a fashion show by Giorgio Armani. After 25 years in business, during which he has

created not just Italy's most successful fashion house but an entire language of style, Armani is sexing-up his fashion equation.

Suddenly, at age 66, Armani has discovered sex. Well, if not sex itself then certainly the power of sex as a marketing tool. The current advertising campaign for his Emporio Armani line features an erotically-charged interplay between naked male flesh and a woman's leg shod in a fetishist's dream of a spike-heeled ankle boot.

And the Emporio collection for spring-summer 2001 (which he showed in Milan yesterday afternoon) infused his signature barely-there running water colour palette with an unexpectedly overt sexiness.

It wasn't, of course, sleazy. Dear me no. But Armani must have been looking a little closer than ever before at the physical differences that distinguish men from women. While his male models wore slender suits, close-fitting jersey tops and low-rise trousers, the women seemed caught in a breeze of sheer

fabric. And even although all Armani women are as likely

as ever to wear the pants, andro-gyny is - it seems - a thing of

the past.

Armani was the designer who first knocked the stuffing out of a jacket to make it a garment that softly molded to the body. Remember that back in the seventies and early eighties, this was truly revolutionary. But his newest Emporio jackets are lighter that you might ever imagine possible and just a little under-sized - making them sufficiently body-conscious to seem provocative even when fashioned from regular fabrics. Translated into filmy chiffons, they ripple across the female form like a gentle haze.

This Emporio Armani was an artful and engaging show, with its quiet colours offering a welcome respite from the lurid hues seen on so many other runways.

His clothes had a sense of youthful prettiness - a quality which has been compromised elsewhere in pursuit of ironic takes on ladylike elegance or the current trend for retro-eighties looks. It was interesting to see that Armani was still prepared to edge his distinctive style forward into a difficult territory.

Yet so many of these pretty yet pretty unwearable clothes lacked that sense of runway-to-wardrobe reality once fundamental to every outfit seen in an Armani show.

Instead of addressing devotees' actual needs, Armani seemed to be playing the flirt - winking, tickling fancies, confounding expectations in a ''life in the old dog yet'' sort of way.

Frankly, it's amazing that he has the energy. For this is a very big week for Armani. He is opening a massive new store on Via Manzoni in central Milan, showcasing every aspect of his world from jeans to jewellery, from boots belts and bags to books, from fragrances to furnishings. His first foray into colour cosmetics has just debuted at La Rinascente - coincidentally, the department store for which he worked as a buyer 40 years ago. And he'll be following up yesterday's Emporio presentation with a show for his mainline collection tomorrow.

The man is past normal retirement age. But he still looks in great shape and shows absolutely no sign of easing up. Indeed, suddenly he seems to be positively jockeying for attention. As well he must. For although the enormous scale of his business makes Armani easily the biggest (and therefore, arguably, the greatest) name in Italian fashion, the Milan agenda has become dominated in recent years by

the impressive growth of Prada

and the spectacular regeneration

of Gucci.

In the late Gianni Versace, Armani had a worthy sparring partner. Tittle-tattle about their mutual disrespect kept both designers on the tips of tongues all through the eighties and early nineties. And, if nothing else, all that gleefully distributed gossip kept Armani in the news at a time when the strength and virtue of his work was its absolute consistency rather than the compromising pursuit of novelty.

Consolidation of a massive empire (Armani's annual turnover is in excess of #600m) doesn't really make fashion news. There's no especially compelling story in mere survival. What the fashion world thrives on is innovation and cataclysmic change. Armani began his career as a harbinger of both. But the succeeding quarter-century has been all about maintaining his own very particular status quo.

Yet maybe he is in the mood for change. Perhaps he does want to lighten up, worry a little less, and throw both caution and propriety out the window of his fortress-like headquarters. He is certainly shrewd enough as a businessman to realise that even the greatest houses must maintain a message of dynamism

in today's highly competitive fashion world.

Whatever plans Armani may have for the future of his business, he clearly cannot afford to let newcomers and upstarts usurp his pole position in Italian fashion. Perhaps he felt it wasn't enough to be opening fabulous new stores and launching new product lines; he had to play those upstarts at their own game. Which meant taking sex drive

for a little spin round the

drawing board. And serving up some sauce with his unique

fashion fare.