Roberto Cavalli | Fall Winter 2022/2023 | Fashion Show

Google Zendaya + Roberto Cavalli and the search engine serves up well over 500,000 results. Last November, the best-dressed young superstar on the planet selected a vintage Cavalli dress from the yr 2000 that featured a gold snakelike spinal cord structure on an otherwise bare back for a red carpet appearance promoting Spider-Man in Paris.

The label’s current designer, Fausto Puglisi, has had no trouble attracting celebrities to his revived version of Cavalli—see Jennifer Lopez’s Marry Me press tour, for starters. However the Zendaya dress was a form of ordinary bearer for this collection within the sense that it rendered its wearer drop-dead sexy without in any way being a pushover. Getting sexy right is a sophisticated job in a post-#MeToo world, when Gen-Z and Millennial women designers are managing the duty quite handily. For backup, Puglisi had Maria Sophie, the last queen of Naples and an actual ball buster, on his moodboard, alongside the historian-turned-novelist of feminine empowerment Lisa Hilton. But even without them he’s doing a bang-up job without making sexy into the be-all and end-all of his m.o.

First the less obvious stuff. That is essentially the most surprising aspect of Puglisi’s Cavalli remodel: Never before has this label called upon the tartan maker to Queen Elizabeth II for its plaids. Whether a plaid has indeed ever appeared on a Roberto Cavalli runway is up for debate; but either way, Puglisi brought his minimalist’s eye for sharp cuts—yes, I said minimalist—to tailored pieces.

As for a way he’s getting sexy right, much of it comes right down to the gathering’s fetish aspect. His Cavalli women looked comfortably on top of things in his cage dresses. Lingerie dressing quickly emerged as a key theme on day one among Milan Fashion Week. All credit to Puglisi, it won’t be long before one other young star makes a red carpet hit out of his update to the Zendaya dress, which transfers the sport of conceal/disclose to the front of the torso.

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