In what now seems like the Pleistocene epoch but which was just four years ago, long stretches of Madison Avenue, widely judged the premier retail rialto on the planet, were boarded up against vandals and all but abandoned.

Along with the onset of Covid-19 and its ensuing tragedies and terrors came the inevitable prophecies that certain aspects of shiny, glamorous, chic New York were gone, never to return. If the doomsayers were many, Giorgio Armani was never one. Even as the city suffered through lockdown, this onetime window dresser whose fashion designs transformed his surname into one of the most legible fashion brand names in the world, instituted a game plan.

Far from throwing in the towel on the first city outside Italy to embrace his creations, Mr. Armani and his team began laying the groundwork for a renewal of his flagship at 65th Street. That building, expanded to 12 floors in an Art Deco-ish style with eight floors of luxury residences, sits atop an expanded store selling Armani-branded furniture, cosmetics, fragrances, fine jewelry, men’s and women’s wear and, yes, candy.

To celebrate its opening, Mr. Armani was hardly going to settle for a ribbon-cutting. So, for his first visit to these shores in nearly a decade, the designer produced a full-scale black-tie fashion extravaganza to showcase his latest women’s collection — 95 of his drifty and bejeweled, not-entirely-contemporary looks shown at the Park Avenue Armory for 650 seated guests, with a cocktail party to follow. And then the inevitable after-party, held at the Bemelmans Bar of the Carlyle hotel, where many of those flown in by Mr. Armani for the occasion and billeted at his expense could be seen cozying up on banquettes alongside the likes of Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio.