Roberto Cavalli, the fashion designer who celebrated excess, dies at 83

By the mid-1990s, he was one of the biggest names in fashion, with stores around the world and admirers of celebrities like Lenny Kravitz and Cindy Crawford. Roberto Cavalli, the Italian fashion designer who celebrated glamor and excess, sending models and actresses down red carpets wearing leopard print dresses, bejeweled distressed jeans, satin corsets and other decidedly flashy clothing, is dead. He was 83 years old.
His company announced the death on Instagram but provided no details.
Mr. Cavalli's signature style – “molto sexy, molto animal print et molto, molto Italiano,” as the British newspaper The Independent once described it – remained essentially unchanged throughout his long career. But he skillfully reinvented his clothes for different eras, enjoying several revivals and building a global lifestyle brand in the process.
In the 1970s, Mr. Cavalli designed jackets, jeans and mini dresses made from patchwork denim, selling his high-end hippie dresses in a boutique in Saint-Tropez, on the French Riviera, to actresses like Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren.
For the next two decades, he remained largely unknown outside of Europe. Then, in the 1990s, he reinvented luxury denim, first with the sandblasted look and then, in a stroke of invention, by putting Lycra in jeans to make them more fitted and sexier. When model Naomi Campbell wore a pair on a runway show in 1993, stretch jeans became a big trend.
Before this breakthrough, Mr. Cavalli were in trouble, and he had considered closing his factory. But by the mid-'90s, he was one of the biggest names in fashion, with stores around the world, celebrity admirers like Lenny Kravitz and Cindy Crawford, and licenses for everything from jewelry to perfume. and sunglasses to children's clothing, household items and a Roberto Cavalli brand Vodka, packaged in a snakeskin-covered bottle.
I like (Gianni) Versace or Calvin (Klein), Cavalli achieved the status of a unique name: he represented an instantly recognizable aesthetic.
"Roberto loved excess, but he never lost his point of view. said Nina Garcia, editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, in an email in 2020. “Even when minimalism was the norm, he believed in maximalism. He dressed us thinking that life – and fashion – should be lived at full speed.

Fashion Apr 13, 2024 0 13 Add to Reading List

Roberto Cavalli, the fashion designer who celebrated excess, dies at 83

By the mid-1990s, he was one of the biggest names in fashion, with stores around the world and admirers of celebrities like Lenny Kravitz and Cindy Crawford. Roberto Cavalli, the Italian fashion designer who celebrated glamor and excess, sending models and actresses down red carpets wearing leopard print dresses, bejeweled distressed jeans, satin corsets and other decidedly flashy clothing, is dead. He was 83 years old.

His company announced the death on Instagram but provided no details.

Mr. Cavalli's signature style – “molto sexy, molto animal print et molto, molto Italiano,” as the British newspaper The Independent once described it – remained essentially unchanged throughout his long career. But he skillfully reinvented his clothes for different eras, enjoying several revivals and building a global lifestyle brand in the process.

In the 1970s, Mr. Cavalli designed jackets, jeans and mini dresses made from patchwork denim, selling his high-end hippie dresses in a boutique in Saint-Tropez, on the French Riviera, to actresses like Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren.

For the next two decades, he remained largely unknown outside of Europe. Then, in the 1990s, he reinvented luxury denim, first with the sandblasted look and then, in a stroke of invention, by putting Lycra in jeans to make them more fitted and sexier. When model Naomi Campbell wore a pair on a runway show in 1993, stretch jeans became a big trend.

Before this breakthrough, Mr. Cavalli were in trouble, and he had considered closing his factory. But by the mid-'90s, he was one of the biggest names in fashion, with stores around the world, celebrity admirers like Lenny Kravitz and Cindy Crawford, and licenses for everything from jewelry to perfume. and sunglasses to children's clothing, household items and a Roberto Cavalli brand Vodka, packaged in a snakeskin-covered bottle.

I like (Gianni) Versace or Calvin (Klein), Cavalli achieved the status of a unique name: he represented an instantly recognizable aesthetic.

"Roberto loved excess, but he never lost his point of view. said Nina Garcia, editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, in an email in 2020. “Even when minimalism was the norm, he believed in maximalism. He dressed us thinking that life – and fashion – should be lived at full speed.