Turning 70 on Sunday, Giorgio Armani, with his perma-tan, toned muscles and athletic physique, looks anything but his age. While he has everything - including a fashion empire worth billions-there is no apparent heir. "At 70, my birthday present to myself is that fact that I am continuing to think and go on ahead alone, without anyone to hold my hand," he told AFP, half-joking, half serious, in an interview after presenting his latest men's collection last week.

Was Armani confiding that he is beginning to find life at the top lonely? The multinational company, which he has built up and employs 5,000 worldwide, with an annual turnover of 1.3 billion euros remains independent and proud to be so in these days of luxury conglomerates.

The man is inseparable from the empire he has created-from the Teatro Armani in Milan, designed by his "friend," the Japanese architect, Tadao Ando, himself a global style guru, to his megastores in Shanghai, his sumptuous villa on the exclusive island of Pantelleria off Sicily, his new line of home furnishings "Armani Casa", and the vast yacht "Mariu" to which he recently treated himself.