Roberto, Revisited: The Coolest Cavalli Designs In The Pages Of ...
“If the gods of fashion excess had been sitting around on a cloud, plotting the ideal qualities for a new designer to bestow on a suddenly glam-hungry woman-kind, they couldn’t have dreamed up anyone better than Roberto Cavalli,” Sarah Mower wrote of the late Italian designer’s “louche, loud, luxe” work in the August 2000 issue of American Vogue, crediting him with precipitating “fashion’s [Noughties] love affair with rhinestone jeans and animal-print chiffon”.
If Cavalli’s conception of glamour evolved in the decades that followed, his commitment to maximalism never waned, nor did Vogue’s support for the designer and those who succeeded him at his eponymous house: first Peter Dundas, then Paul Surridge, and finally Fausto Puglisi. As fans mourn Cavalli’s passing, revisit his label’s most distinctive designs in the pages of Vogue, below.
Lachlan Bailey
December 2007When Vogue decided December 2007 would be “The Glamour Issue”, it was inevitable that it would feature both Kate Moss – tasked, in this shoot, with revisiting “the silver-screen era” and producing “a study in sultry modern glamour” – and Roberto Cavalli. Here, the supermodel wears a “revealing silk-jersey goddess gown” by the designer, to which “an outsized beret adds Lauren Bacall allure”.
Corinne Day
June 2002Corinne Day captured Gisele in a floaty floral gown punched up with a pair of Converse for one of the super’s earliest appearances in the pages of Vogue, an editorial titled “Nature’s Child” which was themed around the “bold florals, nostalgic paisleys and delicate butterfly prints” that defined the season’s “new folk chic”. Gisele would, of course, go on to star in an ultra-tanned, zebra-striped campaign for the Italian house that would become a defining image of mid-Aughts fashion.
Richard Bush
December 2004Twenty years ago, Vogue devoted a scrapbook-style feature to the trends that dominated fashion in 2004: “We loved the fads thrown in with our grown-up new look,” journalist Harriet Quick wrote. “Ugg boots (sort of pets for your legs), charms to dangle from your bag, ribbon belts, staggeringly high wedges, sparkly glam-rock scarves… A fashion feast if ever there was one.” Included in the accompanying shoot: this frou-frou feather and Swarovski crystal almost-but-not-quite dress by Roberto Cavalli.
Venetia Scott
May 2018“Set your temperature to max on your summer wardrobe with an audacious mix of exotic fabrics, kaleidoscopic prints and exhilarating colour,” Vogue commanded in May 2018. There to illustrate how tempting tassels and trims could be: model Karly Loyce, pictured here on the streets of Lagos in a pony-skin skirt and suede jacket by Roberto Cavalli.
