Roberto Cavalli, the larger than leopard print perma-tanned Italian, who died on Friday night, aged 83, was the kind of fashion designer you don’t encounter so much these days. His singular style was nothing short of decadent and he stole his best ideas from nature, with animal print everywhere. “I started to appreciate that even fish have a fantastic coloured ‘dress’, so does the snake, and the tiger. I start[ed] to understand that God is really the best designer, so I started to copy God.”
His fashion shows in Milan, usually in the evening accompanied by a glass of champagne, were overtly, obviously glamorous. Super-tanned, super-slim models, fabric slashed around flesh, heels high and hair glossy. One featured a flaming ring of (real) fire, placed inside a pop-up tent during a hot Milanese day which was a literal blistering heat-fest. It was pure fantasy fur-coat-never-bother-with-knickers stuff, which fitted his heyday moment during the late Nineties and Noughties, where for a while he was the maestro to whom women turned to for high-octane, flashy notice-me red carpet moments.Victoria Beckham’s Baden-Baden Wag era would have been nothing without his wardrobe contributions; she even walked in one of his creations — a slashed gown in oceanic green and blue — at a Monte Carlo charity fashion show in 2005, as well as bringing along the entire Spice Girl gang to one of his menswear shows in 2008.
