I like Giorgio Armani. He strikes me as one of those lovely, quirky, self-centered genius-voluptuaries, and he does make a hell of a garment: as a friend of mine likes to say, you could probably wear an Armani suit turned inside-out. And today I learned that he’s now practically a neighbour!

According to Caribbean Net News, Armani has bought a home in Antigua, which is just up the road from here (well, a few hundred miles or so). The article features a photo of the Armani villa, which is tasteful and understated like an Armani garment, with bougainvillea cascading over a terrace and exterior walls done up in terracotta tones. In fact, one wonders if Armani might not have had the paint matched to a swatch of his own skin, which, as we see in the second photo (in which he appears alongside Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Minister, Harold Lovell) is also terracotta-coloured.

Armani, who spoke to Caribbean Net News through a translator and sipped Dom Perignon during the interview, made the usual vapid comments about the wonderfulness of Antigua (what does one say, after all, when one has thrown down a few mil on a villa on somebody else’s turf?). But he also seems to have discerned certain aspects of the island that were news to me. Referring to one of the more culturally homogeneous of the Caribbean islands, Armani says he is

“very intrigued at the diversity of cultures present on the island and the ease and flexibility with which the peoples co-exist”

The article does go on to say, however, that he observes these cultures “each day during his regular jogs on the outskirts of his property,” so perhaps it’s simply that Armani’s neighbourhood is more cosmopolitan than other parts of the island. And I hope the Tourism Minister was carrying a notebook, because Armani also offered these bits of advice:

“ensure that all developers respect your islands’ resources”

and

“They shouldn’t build too close to the shoreline and they should not build too many high rise buildings”

The best line in the piece, however, comes as a result of what appears to be a delicious piece of mis-translation:

Mr. Armani related much of what he likes about Antigua and Barbuda, a place which he stated abounds in “Beauty isolated!”

Beauty isolated! I’m no Italian expert, but I suspect this might be a direct translation of something like “bellezza isolata”, which does literally mean “beauty isolated”, but which might more accurately be translated as something like “beauty in the form of an island”, or “beauty embodied by an island”. But of course I could be wrong. Any Italian speakers out there?