Burkle to host Armani event

In what may be the unlikeliest pairing of hosts on Oscar weekend, designer Giorgio Armani announced Thursday that he would present the couture collection he showed recently in Paris at billionaire Ron Burkle’s Green Acre Estates in Beverly Hills the night before the Academy Awards.

“This is a particularly meaningful Oscar year for me as many of my friends are nominated,” Armani said in a statement. “Therefore it gives me great pleasure to celebrate this year’s awards with a special presentation of my new couture collection. The Green Acres Estate will provide a wonderful setting for what I hope will be a memorable occasion.”

Fashion designers have increasingly rushed to town on Oscar weekend to ensure that A-listers hit the red carpet in their wares and to personally pose at the Vanity Fair bash at Morton’s. Armani and his entourage will swoop into town just as the curtain drops on his signature presentation in Milan.

Armani’s return to Los Angeles is particularly rare for the 73-year-old designer, who’s putting in fewer frequent miles despite showing no signs of retiring from his empire any time soon. But to those keeping tabs, Armani may as well be Hollywood’s First Man of Style. His team practically created the contemporary cottage industry between celebrity and fashion, from the overpaid stylists to the red carpet coverage in tabloids.

At the Feb. 24 event, the Italian designer will reprise the full Giorgio Armani Prive Spring-Summer 2007 couture show to an invite-only list of heavyweights. During his last visit to Los Angeles in 2001, Sophia Loren, Jodie Foster and Jessica Simpson were among dozens of stars who feted him as the first inductee of the Rodeo Drive Walk of Style. Armani last attended the Oscars in 1992.