As both a designer and a showman, Giorgio Armani was a truly orthogonal thinker. And perhaps his greatest innovation was bequeathed on his own deathbed. Rather than leaving his family-controlled business—an unequivocally iconic asset, but one that had inarguably seen better days—as a tender rabbit lying in wait for private equity or strategic vultures, he wrote in his will that if someone were to buy a stake in his business, he wanted it to be a family-run company. The document specifically mentioned LVMH, as well as L’Oréal and EssilorLuxottica, with whom Armani already has long-time licensing deals. The will also stipulated a two-step deal in which at least one investor takes a 15 percent stake in the business by April 2027, with an option to acquire a majority stake by September 2030. It was a masterstroke that afforded Mr. Armani a patina of control from the world beyond.