An awkward 'lunch' with Armani

[NEW YORK] IT was awkward, in more ways than one. At 1.40pm, Giorgio Armani sat up abruptly and announced he was returning to work. "OK, I have to do 60 fittings." He stood and slipped the strap of his messenger bag over his snowy head.

I scrambled out of the deep, pillow-piled sofa in the salon of his Milan home as he said, "I'm sorry about lunch, but please stay for something to eat." He motioned towards a table set with a bucket of champagne. Then he was gone.

Perhaps it should have been obvious to me that he never planned to sit for a lunch interview, as I had requested some weeks earlier when an Armani publicist made a pitch, the hook being a runway extravaganza the designer has scheduled on Oct 24 for 700 guests at Hudson River Park. I had told myself lunch alone with Giorgio Armani in his home at 21 via Borgonuovo could be an adventure. Who knows what effect a yummy plate of risotto might have on the tongue? It could be fun, I told the publicist.