The Original Favorite Roberto Cavalli Models Close Spring 2025 Show by Fausto Puglisi

MILAN — It felt like a party with old friends.

Eva Herzigova, Natasha Poly, Karen Elson, Joan Smalls, Isabeli Fontana, Alek Wek and Mariacarla Boscono walked the runway, blowing kisses and smiling widely as they filed out one after the other wearing archival Roberto Cavalli looks revisited by current creative director Fausto Puglisi.

After an image of the late designer was blown up on a screen in the background, the models appeared in Puglisi’s spring collection to cheers and clapping and a remixed soundtrack of “Living on My Own” by Freddie Mercury. It was a moment that was made even more significant as Puglisi joined them to take his bow and convinced Eva Cavalli, Roberto’s longtime muse and wife, to leave her seat and walk the runway, all embracing, kissing and looking like they were having fun.

This is what Puglisi had in mind: A celebration of the late designer, who died in April, aged 83, he said in an interview ahead of the show.

After all, when he learned of Cavalli’s death, his words were: “I will feel your spirit with me always,” reiterating that the Tuscan designer would continue to be “a beacon of inspiration for others, and especially for me.”

Puglisi, who joined the Roberto Cavalli brand in October 2020, has ever since referenced some of the late designer’s landmark prints and looks, modernizing them. For his spring 2025 show, he decided he wanted to celebrate his mentor.

In the interview, Puglisi said he had selected and tapped the models he believes were “most associated” with Roberto Cavalli and asked them to wear some of the most iconic looks the legendary designer had created over the years.

Some are the original archival designs, others he tweaked and had them remade. For example, he reworked one of the original slipdresses that had a fur trim, since Puglisi does not work with fur and he believes that synthetic fur “would not render the dress as delicate as the original one.” He selected “key items for every woman traveling, working, going to a cocktail or a dance, emphasizing the prints and the original colors.”

Puglisi said he was struck by a dress worn by the late American actress and singer Aaliyah, which will be revisited. “She was a singer that everyone adored and that everyone still remembers. And then the memorable Jennifer Lopez look [a gown in a golden hue]. I wanted to choose pieces that are connected to the world of music because I was born with music, I live through music and work with music. I am convinced that if Roberto had not become a designer, he would have been a musician, or a rock star.”

This is also a very personal project. “I thought of a very young Fausto living in New York. At that time I was working as a waiter and Cavalli was the king. Everyone wore Cavalli,” he reminisced. “So this is seen through how I felt then, respecting the essence of that period, it’s as if it were a flashback in memory.”

From these looks he created a small capsule that will be immediately available online and exclusively in the brand’s Milan boutique on Via Montenapoleone.

Few may know that Puglisi met Cavalli in Florence when he was asked to be in charge of the brand’s celebrities. “I lived in Los Angeles at the time and back then I did not want to return to Italy, so I declined his offer. But he was wonderful and it is one of the moments I remember with great fondness,” mused Puglisi.  

He remembers with affection how “happy and honored” he was to receive congratulatory messages from the Cavalli himself when he joined the brand in October 2020.

Asked what he thinks Cavalli’s main talents were and how he would characterize him, Puglisi said that “he was a visionary. He was larger than life. He was absolute happiness, he dealt in happiness, was the party and sold the party, he celebrated life without sham intellectualism, understanding what women want and what men want. When I go out, to clubs or restaurants, in London, Shanghai, Paris or Milan, I see women who want to have fun. He loved young people and loved all that was new.”

Puglisi’s first sign of a tribute to Cavalli after his death was the decision to change the direction of the resort collection, reworking the zebra and rose prints. In June, he reinterpreted an archival Ray of Gold print conceived by the namesake founder, who reproduced the image of a sunbeam refracted on his golden Art Deco lighter. 

“My goal is to have a conversation with a new Cavalli generation, to build a new customer base,” Puglisi said, realizing that “women have changed and so many things have changed in fashion. I always want to honor Roberto’s work, the king of a unique lifestyle, and think of what Roberto Cavalli would be today.”