I think God is the most fantastic designer.
-Roberto Cavalli
Milan
By Tim Blanks
Roberto Cavalli threw down a gauntlet to his competition with his Pre-Fall collection. It was realized with such extreme opulence that the challenge was obvious—Who does this best?—the implied answer being, of course, equally inescapable. And, truth be told, it was hard to argue with clothes that so successfully conveyed an impression of a lifestyle so ludicrously, cinematically over the top that it doesn't really give a fig what you think.
Cavalli's secret weapon is his Florentine atelier, where Renaissance workmanship expertly crafts 21st-century excess. Studded biker leathers, silks heaving with embroidery, and tapestry knits were all shaped into a Pre-Fall collection for modern-day Medicis, with griffins, dragons, and other mythological creatures offering another overlay of visual interest in the extravagant accessories. But the thrust of the season for Cavalli was an authoritative reclamation of the animal/reptile prints that are more his signature than any other designer's. Leopard was bias-cut into strips or pleated together with silk. Tiger was rendered in dramatic monochrome embroidery. A column dress was covered with petals of gilded leather, duplicating a crocodile's hide. Cavalli achieved a kind of paradox: clothes that were extreme without being flashy.
The flash he saved for the flowers he loves almost as much as his big cats. They were printed, beaded, and layered into a psychedelic overload. Again, the paradox: psychedelic but not lurid. Cavalli will be 74 this year. Guess that qualifies him as an Old Master. If age won't, the work will.
Roberto Cavalli
Pre-Fall 2014
Roberto Cavalli
Milan
By
Tim Blanks
The unlikely muse for
the Roberto Cavalli show today was Lee Miller, the beautiful American
photographer who seduced le tout Paris at the end of the 1920s. It was
more the style of the period than the style of the person that the collection
drew on. There were evening gowns that were beaded Art Deco columns. A tweed
coat with a huge fox collar had a touch of Zelda about it. And drop-waist
dresses that dissolved into fringe recalled a flapper, which Miller most definitely
wasn't. So maybe Cavalli recognized something in her character that turned him
on. There was preshow talk about a woman who embraces her masculine side by
day—in tweed and leather, in military or equestrian or bike-inflected
clothes—and who, at night, becomes a seducer, a conqueror of men.
But isn't that always the way with the Cavalli woman? Maybe that's become a problem. It's too much to expect the shock of the new from such a label, but some of the greatest Cavalli moments of the past few years have come about when the designer gave the formula a shake—and that was usually when he gave his femme fatale the night off. Here, she was in full, blazing effect, parading round a ring of fire that blossomed threateningly as the show wore on. Cavalli wove the flames into jacquards, tipped fur with them, sent them licking up a skirt in black duchesse. It was a feat of workmanship, no doubt about it, but it was furiously overwrought, like some crazy operatic Sturm und Drang. And it tipped the clothes toward costume. Perhaps it was that Wagnerian ring of fire that made the whole show feel like a Vegas revue. Once that train of thought left the station, all the dazzling workmanship in the world couldn't bring it back.
But isn't that always the way with the Cavalli woman? Maybe that's become a problem. It's too much to expect the shock of the new from such a label, but some of the greatest Cavalli moments of the past few years have come about when the designer gave the formula a shake—and that was usually when he gave his femme fatale the night off. Here, she was in full, blazing effect, parading round a ring of fire that blossomed threateningly as the show wore on. Cavalli wove the flames into jacquards, tipped fur with them, sent them licking up a skirt in black duchesse. It was a feat of workmanship, no doubt about it, but it was furiously overwrought, like some crazy operatic Sturm und Drang. And it tipped the clothes toward costume. Perhaps it was that Wagnerian ring of fire that made the whole show feel like a Vegas revue. Once that train of thought left the station, all the dazzling workmanship in the world couldn't bring it back.
Roberto Cavalli
Fall 2014 Ready-to-Wear
Roberto
Cavalli
Milan
By Matthew Schneier
Glamorama
is now and forever the Cavalli métier, but for Resort, the house looked to
India to leaven its usual animal prints and party dresses. The leopard doesn't
change its spots, but the result looked positively boho, which freshened up the
collection considerably. Indian-influenced embroideries and inset mini mirrors
sweetened longer, looser flowing dresses. The most elaborate among them in the
evening passage were impressively detailed yet steadfastly uncorseted. Jeans
and moto trousers came in for the same treatment—the former getting emblazoned
with what the house called a Gujarati print—and the leather pants that were
once a staple of the house made their return after several seasons away in an
ethnic-inflected version. Opening looks layered animal print on animal print to
reassure longtime Cavallites, but the finest of the lot were the gauzy
embroidered dresses. That, and a cotton-canvas embroidered jacket that looked ready
for tropical temperatures (and not necessarily those of the nearest packed
discotheque). Cotton, in fact, was one of the dominant fabrics of the
collection overall. It's true what they say: Travel does change you. Roberto Cavalli
Resort 2014
Roberto
Cavalli
The insolent minx in the lookbook was
obviously a Roberto Cavalli woman—a leggy, tawny-maned adventuress—but the
designer's Resort collection opened up all sorts of new possibilities. For one
thing, he explored elements of the animal/reptile kingdom other than big cats and
snakes. Perhaps there was some conceptual point in Cavalli's new affection for
the tortoise and the armadillo, hard-shelled creatures that could resist the
slings and arrows of the outrageous fortune that a company in the midst of
reshaping itself might expect to encounter. Whatever, tortoiseshell was a
dazzling new pattern for Cavalli, in filmy georgette or over-embroidered
jacquards or printed onto python (a complex effect amplified by the fact that
each scale of snakeskin was exhaustively edged in gold). The heels of the
appealingly chunky footwear were also tortoiseshell. Armadillo was used in an
over-beaded dress or printed on a croc bag print.Cavalli clearly had scales in mind, because his next move was under the sea with enlarged fish scales printed on sequined mesh. The denizens of the deep showed up as vivid screen-prints, so much richer than digital. But if such visual excess was in tune with what we expect from Cavalli, the collection surprised with its use of cotton, summery in its crispness, pure in its flowing volume, virginal in its whiteness. Virginal? Cavalli? In a curious way, the same feeling for purity infected pieces in fuchsia toile de Jouy, even if one dress was corseted in the time-honored Cavalli style. There was more than enough going on here to whet the appetite for September's Spring collection.
Roberto Cavalli
Resort 2015
Leopard is an animal design, and
my designs come from nature.
-Roberto Cavalli
Great Collections, they exude Elegance, ‘Exotic’ Glamor, ‘Drama’ and Sophistication, all displayed in these collections.
Another relaxing and
enjoyable meeting in our ‘meeting
place’. Let’s get together again very soon. XOs
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