Archival Roberto Cavalli is having a moment. Earlier this month a rare stash of the designer’s ’70s printed leathers were exhibited and sold at the vintage store Reracked in upstate New York, and I’ve heard tell of multiple people scoring pieces from the designer’s younger, punkier Just Cavalli line circa the 2000s on the resale market lately.
Fausto Puglisi, the brand’s current creative director, has picked up on this nostalgia for Cavalli deep cuts. Over his five years at the label, he’s occasionally veered quite far from the house’s glamazon standbys, but this time he went all-in, spiking the signature animal prints, velvet devorés, and embroideries with a clubby edge. This collection was for the girlies.
Its focus was on separates. Miniskirts, bike shorts, halter tops and hot pants, lace-edged camis, and embellished low-rider jeans with strappy thongs peeking out above waistbands—the kaleidoscope of patterns and textures stood out in a fashion week dominated by black and white, and beige. ““I’m thinking about the time we’re living in,” Puglisi said backstage. His instincts are spot on. After years of quiet luxury practicality, heels are trending in the front rows, and, as an astute observer noted hours after the Cavalli show at an industry dinner that packed the perennial hotspot Bice, “Milan is partying again.”
Puglisi’s reference list, as usual, was a mile long. Courtney Love in her grunge splendor, Beverly Hills 90210, Zendaya, the Antonello da Messina masterpiece stolen from a Sicilian museum, and Todd Gray’s “Octavia’s Gaze” at LACMA, which he appreciated for the way it “put different worlds dialoguing together”—all of them got namechecked backstage. It’s all just subtext, though; these were clothes for stoking good times, something that Puglisi is indisputably good at.