It is the morning after the night before, and Fausto Puglisi is feeling it.
The Sicilian designer, who took the reins at the storied, sex-centric Italian house Roberto Cavalli in October 2020, hosted a decadent dinner at Selfridges’ Brasserie of Light restaurant last Wednesday night.
Damien Hirst’s 24ft, crystal-encrusted unicorn hung overhead as an aristo-heavy set tucked into caviar and lobsters, and enjoyed a heart-racing performance by Rina Sawayama. The party, I am told, continued on to Chiltern Firehouse until the very early hours. We have returned to Selfridges, and Puglisi is beckoning for water before we begin our conversation — yet, despite the sore head, it is obvious to everyone around that this is a man on cloud nine.
“I love London! I love!” he bellows, in his thick, bouncy accent which carries an infectious joy. “It’s the best place in Europe.” Last week he was in New York to help Taylor Swift with her world tour fashion. Tomorrow, he will go back to his home in Milan. “Then we have Naples, Mykonos, Florence, Roma, and then back to New York. Whatever, it’s fine,” he smirks. It is the jet-set life of an international designer he always dreamed of.
“I was born thinking I was going to be a fashion designer, since I was really, really young. At five or six and I was drawing designs,” he says. “I grew up in the Eighties, so Italian fashion was Versace, Versace, Versace. Then Dolce & Gabbana, Missoni. It was a huge moment for Italian fashion.”
The bright lights pulled him in. At 17, he left his provincial life in Messina, Sicily, on a one-way flight to New York. “It wasn’t scary,” he says. “I was so irresponsible. No fear, just dreams.”
He recalls the blur of a “lunar city” and vibrant parties, before he met esteemed stylist Patti Wilson, who would launch his career. “At the time, she was the stylist for [photographer] David LaChapelle, Whitney Houston, and Michael Jackson. She saw a small collection I’d made back in Sicily, and she loved it, so she proposed for me to dress Whitney for the 2004 Grammy Awards.” Houston took to the stage wearing his leather trench, leather trousers, and leather trilby. For an 18-year-old, it was almost incomprehensible.
“Then I started with Madonna. My first cover was for Elle, with her, and it was a beautiful relationship. I started working with her stylist, and then with Madonna herself,” he says. It would turn out to be a relationship lasting decades with countless looks. He is most proud of the red, crystal-embellished black cape, worn on the cover of her 2019 album Madame X. “She knows what she wants and she’s always right. Whatever she asks for is perfection. Even if you think, ‘Oh my god, are you sure?’ Yes. She’s right,” he says.
Mega-star clients and sparkling show-girl concert wear have been the one constant for Puglisi throughout his career and it’s made him wary of name-dropping. “Fashion is full of people that say, ‘Oh my God, yesterday I was with whoever’, and abuse this. I am very loyal to these people. I wouldn’t tell you I was with Madonna. I wouldn’t tell you I was with JLo and Ben Affleck in their house for the Dodgers’ rehearsal,” he says, referring to a diamante blue and red cheerleader-style showpiece he made for Lopez’s headline performance at The Blue Diamond Gala fundraising for the LA baseball team last June. But did you? “I did it, yes. But I’m not going to tell.”
The list goes on. He is Taylor Swift’s go-to, and responsible for 12 of her current tour looks. “Oh my God. I love her! I get so inspired by these people,” he says. “The process is easy — they call me because they like what I do, and I only accept if I like you first. Otherwise, I say no. Then you listen to the music, and try to translate your own point of view with the music.”
Others on his roster include FKA Twigs (“I’m obsessed with her!”), Miley Cyrus (“I love Miley! I’m obsessed over Miley!”), and Zendaya (“I love Zendaya! Oh wow she is my love… I think I’m obsessed over everybody.”)
The Euphoria star has a particularly special place in his heart. Puglisi invited her to her first Met Gala, themed China: Through the Looking Glass, in 2015, and dressed her in a red silk satin, high-low cut gown with embroidered sun motifs and a black, V-scoop top. “We spent so much time together with her and Law Roach, her stylist, and her father. She is so profound. Such an artist, she’s so deep.”
It was a gown designed under his namesake brand, which he began with his first “real show” for the spring/summer 2015 collection. “It was fantastic — Anna Wintour was there. Suzy Menkes. Tim Blanks,” he says.
Then, mid-pandemic in 2020, came the call from Cavalli. “I was like ‘Oh my God’, Roberto was at the top. But, when they sold it, they started to close the stores. It was down the hatchet,” he says, of the Italian label’s turbulent recent history. The namesake designer, now 82, opened his first boutique in Saint Tropez in 1972 and built his brand with a new leather-printing procedure and patchwork designs, followed by a riot of raunchy, animal-print slip dresses, and sand-blasted jeans.
It ballooned into a mammoth label, synonymous with Y2K style, and offered menswear, womenswear, eyewear, watches, jewellery, perfumes, underwear, beachwear, and a children’s line. But 2014 saw the tables turn and the label began posting annual losses. In 2015, the family sold a 90 per cent share to investor Clessidra, before the company filed for bankruptcy in 2019. That year, real estate developer Vision Investment Co. LLC, which is based in Dubai, bought it for a reported €160 million (£137 m). Puglisi was key to the resuscitation plan, and rose to the challenge.
His following collections, which are punctuated with Pre-Fall and Resort lines, have been an explosive mix of boho-chic leather dresses, body-conscious cut-out, clinging frocks, electric-printed suits and, of course, leopard print on leopard print. What is the enduring appeal of animal print? “I’m obsessed with Adrian, one of the first Hollywood costume designers. And Mr Christian Dior, himself. And there are plenty of beautiful pictures in Paris of these ladies in their full leopard-print coats — I am not for real fur, of course. But it’s so grand, elegant — wild!”
And while wild and sexy is on the menu, Puglisi’s vision for the future of the label stretches further. “You don’t need to be a glamazon or a supermodel to wear Cavalli. Every strong woman with a point of view can wear it,” he says. “My perfect body to dress is a mix of genders, of people, cultures, all together. No mind of skin colour, or size of body,” he says. “Trust me, it’s not because now is the moment you should say that.” His early shows, which he casted himself, were welcoming to all, he says. An example? “I had my friend, Greta, who is transexual, on the catwalk. Anna Wintour loved her.”
This is followed by a moment of reflection for Pride month and the LGBTQIA+ cause. For all his giggling and chatter about sequins and celebrities, Puglisi turns serious when it comes to the subject of equality. “I will always advocate for human rights and freedom,” he says. This Pride month marks a moment to step up. “We are in a moment in the world where democracy and rights are really in danger. We must fight, stay united, and stay focused.”
