• September 26, 2007

In the midst of Milan's spring fashion collections this week, Giorgio Armani announced a long-term strategic partnership with Samsung, the Korean electronics giant, and says it will market a new luxury cell phone and an LCD TV.

"We make as much of a personal statement with the mobile phones that we carry or the televisions we have in our living rooms as we do with the shoes and bags we wear or the furnishings we chose to place in our homes," the designer says, in a statement.

The phone, which is the size of a credit card and has a camera and a music player, was introduced this week. The TV, part of the Armani/Casa home furnishings line, will be introduced in January. Too bad for Americans: For now, a Samsung spokesperson says, there are no immediate plans to sell either in the U.S.

--Sarah Mahoney