Roberto Cavalli passed away in his hometown of Florence Italy on April 12, 2024, after battling a long illness. He lived a long life of 83 years old and contributed to the high-end fashion industry since the 1970s.
Cavalli’s Start in Fashion
Cavalli’s grandfather was a celebrated Impressionist painter and his mother was a seamstress. However, his love for designing fashion began in the 1960s at an art school. He befriended a student whose family owned an apparel factory and she suggested Cavalli make some prints on T-shirts. He started with 21 T-shirts which grew to a few hundred and before he knew it, he was hooked.
He became so enthralled in the printing of garments that he would make weekly trips to Cuomo, the capital of the textile industry, to study the process. Cavalli would eventually invent his own printing process on leather which he debuted in Paris winning commissions from design houses including Hermès and Pierre Cardin in the 1970s. When he turned 30, Cavalli would showcase his work on the catwalk of the Sala Bianca of Palazzo Pitti in Florence. His collection featured garments with printed denim, leather, brocades, and wild prints.
In 1972, Cavalli opened his first boutique in Saint-Tropez. Business in Saint-Tropez was slow as minimalist and deconstructive fashions reigned in popularity. However, he was able to garner clients like Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren. Cavalli shifted his focus at this time towards family and married Eva Duringer who became the creative director of the Roberto Cavalli collection. He had two children from his previous marriage with Silvanella Giannoni in 1964 and three more with Duringer.
A Love for Animals
When his children were young, he built an extravagant aviary and filled it with peacocks, pheasants, and various duck species. He would care for the eggs until they hatched and nurtured them throughout their life. Cavalli writes in his blog, “I loved to explain all these things to my children. I liked to encourage them to love animals, nature and everything that the countryside offered us.”
He grew his aviary with various parrots from blue to yellow to red. He appreciated their intelligence and their ability to bond with one single person. After a few years, he adopted German Shepard dogs into his growing family. He loved surrounding himself with animals and was heavily inspired by their colorful patterns and instincts.
Cavalli Makes a Roar in the Fashion Industry
Cavalli made a hit with his sensual silk dresses and animal prints. Cindy Crawford would model for his Spring/Summer 2000 collection and many other red-carpet events.
He made various Ready-to-Wear collections in the 2000s using luxurious fabrics adorned with animal prints like leopard, zebra, and snake patterns. His distinctive style using these prints garnered him a recognizable brand that resonated with many stars.
In 2002, Cavalli dressed Britney Spears for the American Music Awards the following year becoming a household name amongst celebrities. Cavalli opened his first cafè-store in Florence and decorated the store with themes of his signature animal prints the same year.
Cavalli sponsored ‘Wild: Fashion Untamed’ in 2004 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York. The exhibition examined the fascination with animal skins and references in clothing throughout history. He told British Vogue in 2011, “I started to appreciate that even fish have a fantastic colored ‘dress’, so does the snake, and the tiger.”
Cavalli Goes Down the Rabbit Hole
During one of Playboy’s heights in popularity, Cavalli was commissioned to redesign their infamous Playboy Bunny Costume in 2006. The original costume was debuted at the Chicago Playboy Club in 1960. Cavalli’s Playboy collection debuted in Las Vegas and true to his fashion, he included one leopard print costume and elongated the ears.
Touring with Cavalli
Cavalli would go on to design tour outfits for the Spice Girls Reunion. In 2007, he unveiled a sparkling collection for each of the Spice Girls and the outfits tailored to each of their personalities. Victoria Beckham spearheaded the idea that Cavalli would be the designer for the tour after a long history between the two.
The same year, Christina Aguilera commissioned Cavalli to create a custom look for her Back to Basics Tour. She previously wore a Cavalli minidress meticulously placed with feathers and beads to the 2003 and 2004 MTV Video Music Awards.
In 2010, Cavalli created a custom look for Jennifer Lopez’s performance at the World Music Awards and red carpet. In his blog, he writes, “I have done many fashion shows…and sometimes I feel like I lost the excitement and enthusiasm, but walking the red carpet with Jennifer Lopez last night was fantastic.” This solidified a long-lasting relationship between the designer and J-Lo.
J-Lo would continue her relationship with Roberto Cavalli’s brand in 2022. She wore a custom Cavalli look at the LuisaViaRoma x UNICEF Gala with an oversized chiffon cape, matching tiger print bustier, and silk pants with embroidered crystals.
Liquid Fashion
In 2006, Cavalli announced the launch of his vodka line with an animal-printed party. The bottle features a sleek and minimalist design, avoiding Cavalli’s typical design choices. The vodka is made from the purest water from the Monta Rosa slopes and filtered through flakes of Italian Carrara marble to create a smooth and luxurious taste. Roberto Cavalli Vodka first hit the markets at a retail price of $60 but can now be found for $35 a bottle.
Vodka was not the only drink Cavalli had his hands on. In 2008, the Coca-Cola Company commissioned Roberto Cavalli to create three limited-edition bottle designs for Italian consumers. 100,000 bottles were produced of each design and sold exclusively to Italian restaurants and bars. The bottles were made as a special tribute to mark the start of Milan Fashion Week.
Roberto Cavalli is one of a few designers amongst Karl Lagerfeld and Jean Paul Gaultier to be commissioned by Coca-Cola to create a limited bottle design.
It’s Not a Dress, It’s Cavalli
Carrie Bradshaw from the highly quotable show, Sex and the City, wore a distressed Roberto Cavalli outfit. Carrie promises her boyfriend, Aidan, that she will throw out some of her clothes, including the shirt, to make room for his clothes. However, like many fashion lovers, she was unable to part with the designer piece and the episode closes with her flaunting down the steps of her brownstone residence in her Cavalli shirt.
Carrie even wears a Roberto Cavalli red giraffe silk printed dress in the infamous mugging scene where she says, “It’s a baguette,” referencing her Fendi baguette purse.
Sex and the City strongly influenced shaping fashion trends which helped solidify Roberto Cavalli’s reputation as a go-to designer for attention-grabbing and sensual pieces. His clothes would be featured on the show numerous times providing extensive exposure for his designs and creating a coveted brand for viewers.
A Legacy of Glamour and Iconic Animal Prints
2010 would mark 40 years of business and Roberto Cavalli was named the number one women’s fashion label on the Luxury Brand Status Index. As a celebration, he released a coffee-table book and held an extravagant party in Paris attended by Taylor Swift, Naomi Campbell, and Heidi Klum.
He would eventually step down from designing around 2013 with a French designer, Yvan Mispelaere, taking over the role of Creative Director. However, his previous looks would see a resurgence with a new audience, Gen Z, who has a current choke-hold on Y2K fashion.
Roberto Cavalli has successfully created a long history of dressing Hollywood’s biggest stars like Beyoncé, Aaliyah, Victoria Beckham, and Pamela Anderson. The Associated Press quoted him that the woman he dressed, “was a woman who believes a lot in herself. A woman who can show she is strong but at the same time soft and romantic.”
He made a strong impact in the world of fashion. The editor-in-chief at Elle magazine, Nina Garcia, wrote, “Even when minimalism was the norm, he believed in maximalism. He dressed us thinking that life- and fashion – should be lived at full speed.” Roberto Cavalli will be remembered for his silky dresses, denim and leather prints, his love for animals, and of course, his animal prints.
