Attendees at amfAR’s Las Vegas gala last month got a sneak peek at this Roberto Cavalli pre-fall collection when designer Fausto Puglisi arrived arm-in-arm with the actress Juno Temple and in matching black-and-white florals, hers with hand-applied gold detailing tracing the outlines of blossoms, a technique the designer admired on both antique Chinese pottery and Cavalli’s earliest work.
The house founder, who died in April of this year, was notorious for the suggestiveness of his clothes. He got less credit for his obsession with textiles, which he mixed and matched with kaleidoscopic verve, but they were just as essential to the hot-blooded appeal of his clothes. Puglisi, too, is a bit of a fabric freak, and he put his enthusiasm to work in this collection, taking cues from the perennially inspirational Marchesa Luisa Casati.
The slip dress pictured here, which combines two incandescent fil coupés, one in swimming pool blue, the other in deep forest green, with bronze lace, and is punctuated by a contrasting velvet obi belt, showcases that enthusiasm to vivid effect. More sweet than sultry, it also reconfigures the familiar Cavalli silhouette. “I’m talking about a different kind of woman,” Puglisi said on a Zoom call from Vegas. “It’s not 20 years ago anymore.”
With his pre-season collections, Puglisi has to talk to many different kinds of women and men, and so there’s quite a bit of variety here, ranging from Cavalli-isms including caftans and pajama sets to pieces more aligned with Puglisi’s own inclinations, like satin souvenir bomber jackets and sleek yet curvy printed tuxedos of the kind the photographer Ellen von Unwerth was seen in all over this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The something-for-everyone approach can tend to water down a designer’s point of view, but there’s a lot of life in this Cavalli collection.
