Roberto Cavalli: The man who gave us distressed denims and skinny jeans
At the core of the Italian designer's flamboyant designs was an awareness that fashion is for everybody
Roberto Cavalli was a designer who defined boho chic with working-class aspirations. (Reuters)
Nowhere else was the impact of the fashion industry on the clothes we wear articulated as deftly as in the film, The Devil Wears Prada (2006). There’s a moment where fashion editor Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep) tells her assistant Andy (Anne Hathway), who believes that high fashion is elitist and offensive to her liberal sensibilities, about what a designer blue sweater represents. “… that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. And you’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns… Then it filtered down through the department stores…. that blue represents millions of dollars of countless jobs… and it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room,” says Priestley. That speech sums up the democratic core of maverick fashion guru Roberto Cavalli, who died on April 12 at the age of 83. Cavalli was a designer who defined boho chic with working-class aspirations.
Known for his maximalist designs, be it the animal-inspired leopard prints and zebra stripes, his beaded gowns or the many-feathered layers in psychedelic colours, Cavalli’s excesses were a rebellion against the minimalist and classical conventionality of high fashion. At heart, Cavalli never forgot about his origins. So when he made printed sweaters, he drew inspiration from his early days of struggle in Florence and his mother’s paintings. In the hard days of post-war Europe, his mother turned into a dressmaker who hand-painted her creations. It was while doing ready-to-wear sweaters for Mariuccia Mandelli of Krizia, that they both hit upon the idea of simulating wild-beast pelts. This was not about Cavalli’s indulgent excess but about paying tribute to impressionist animal paintings and his nature philosophy.
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