Clothes, not concepts – or as he puts it: “no nonsense”: that is what Fausto Puglisi wants to deliver as his stewardship of Roberto Cavalli continues. Even at 9am sharp on a freezing Milan morning this week, the fiery Sicilian’s passion for his performance boiled over. “You editors always want stories – blah, blah, blah – and there’s one here. But the truth is, I think a lot about the demographic of women for whom it’s my job to create a wardrobe. That’s why I like to talk to retailers, to understand what their customers tell them they’re looking for… and what they show me is that they’re looking for clothes that radiate fun and freedom, and don’t give a damn judgement. She creates herself. That is a statement about power and freedom, and I really like that.”
Puglisi translated that brief into a punchy, robust spaghetti western of a collection that played as casually with transnational codes of well-worn Americana as the rest of the world does with the cultural integrity of Italian food. An Appaloosa print (a lovely Cavalli nod), a zebra-stripe bandana print in the native Central Asian paisley pattern, gaucho hats, swirling malachite prints (plus stone-set accessories) and finally a sharkskin-over-zebra print were his keywords. decorative ingredients. These were served on figure-hugging dresses in figure-hugging chenille, floating chiffon, dévoré metallics, amphibian-smooth sequins and intensely textured velvet. There were pajama sets, separates with a large silhouette, tailoring in an unconventional Milanese tonal herringbone shape, plus red white and blue woolen garments, sometimes embroidered with desert flowers. Mega bandana-print puffers, boot-cut denim, fringed leather skirts and a murderously cool cracked leather trench coat, also fringed, completed the posse of Puglisi proposals. The red-blooded, abundant Florentine maximalism that is Cavalli’s soul was further enhanced by the tusked shoes and tiger-head handbags.
“These are pieces that I want people, real people, to understand immediately,” Puglisi said, “And that’s it.”
