Giorgio Armani: Gay Men 'Don't Need to Dress Homosexual'

Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani is coming under fire this week after making controversial comments about gay men and the way they dress.

The 80-year-old style icon told the Sunday Times magazine k Sunday that gay men "do not need to dress homosexual."

"When homosexuality is exhibited to the extreme -- to say, 'Ah, you know I'm homosexual,' -- that has nothing to do with me. A man has to be a man," he told the publication.

He also made remarks on women who had plastic surgery and muscular men.

"A small breast does not have to become bigger," he said. He then added later in the piece, "I don't like muscle boy. Not too much gym! I like somebody healthy, somebody solid, who looks after his body but doesn't use his muscles too much."

As the International Business Times reports the designer's comments didn't sit well with social media users who lashed out against Armani.

"I'd rather be dressed in drag than spotted in Armani Xchange or any of his other vile labels," one Twitter user wrote. Another called the designer a "plank."

Though a number of media reports identified Armani as gay or bisexual, the fashion icon, who has been a private individual, hasn't commented much on his sexuality, the Huffington Post reports. In 2000, however, he told Vanity Fair, "I have had women in my life. And sometimes men."

Armani recently made headlines when he called Madonna "difficult" to work with after the pop star took a tumble at the BRIT awards because a cape he designed failed to detach from her outfit.

Armani's comments follow similar controversial remarks made by fashion designers of Dolce & Gabbana, who received a backlash after telling an Italian magazine they were against in-vitro fertilization, saying children born through the procedure are "children of chemistry, synthetic children."

"I am gay, I cannot have a child," Domenico Dolce added. "Life has a natural course, some things cannot be changed. One is the family."