What Can We Learn From Giorgio Armani? Estate Planning Lessons from Fashion’s Icon

Working until his final days, Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani died on September 4, 2025, at the age of 91, leaving behind his closely held company worth $12B (that’s with a B!).

Armani had two last wills:

• One for his personal property (his various homes in Milan, New York, the Sicilian island of Pantelleria, and St. Tropez on the French Riviera).
  
• One for his business empire.
  

Both wills were rewritten by Armani last spring, partly by hand on the back of a brown envelope. The business last will instructed his heirs to sell an initial 15% of his fashion house within 18 months of his death.

Estate Planning Lessons from Armani

So, what can we learn from this red-carpet fashion icon?

• You can’t have two last wills in Florida.
  
• There are unique rules about the requirement to sell a homestead property in a last will or trust.
  

Most of us don’t have a billion-dollar empire, but many of us do have a homestead property that will comprise our estate.

The Complications of Forced Sale

The instinct to require beneficiaries (or heirs) to sell a homestead property is complicated because it may impact homestead creditor protection.

As avid readers of this newsletter know, homestead is really three things in Florida:

1. Property tax deductions
   
2. Creditor protection
   
3. Inheritance rules – You cannot disinherit your spouse or minor children from a homestead
   

In this discussion, we’ll focus on #2 and #3:

• The homestead status after passing
  
• The creditor protection aspect that can survive even after death
  

Why Creditor Protection Matters

When you pass away, your house is still creditor protected, and debts cannot attach to that asset—provided it continues to pass to your qualified heirs.

However, if your last will or trust requires your homestead to be sold after your passing (or within a certain time frame), your heirs will not inherit it as a homestead. That can result in losing creditor protection.

👉 In short: If you force a sale, creditors may successfully attach to the property.

Drafting Wills with Care

This is a very nuanced part of the rules, so you want to make sure that when you include this “must sell” language, you leave some oxygen in the room. To avoid problems:

• Include softening language, such as:
  
  • “It’s the grantor’s wishes that the property be sold…”
    
  • “At the trustee’s discretion…”
    
  • “Without impacting the homestead status…”
    

These phrases help preserve homestead status and creditor protection.

Final Takeaway

So, there you have it:

• We learn that Armani built a sleek and tailored fashion empire.
  
• We also learn that a forced sale of homestead must be drafted carefully to avoid unintended creditor consequences.