Roberto Cavalli PRE-FALL 2024

Puglisi translated that brief into a punchily robust Spaghetti Western of a collection that played as casually with transnational codes of worn Americana as the rest of the world does with the cultural integrity of Italian food.

“These are pieces that I want people, real people, to understand immediately,” said Puglisi: “And that’s it.”

An Appaloosa print (a nice Cavalli nod), a bandana print that incorporated Zebra stripe within the originally central Asian paisley, gaucho hats, swirling malachite prints (plus stone-set accessories), and finally a sharkskin-over-zebra print were his key decorative ingredients.

 These were served on form-fitting dresses in clingy chenille, floaty chiffon, dévoré metallics, amphibian-slick sequin, and intensely textured velvet. There were pyjama sets, big-silhouette separates, tailoring in an incongruous Milanese tonal herringbone, plus red white and blue wools sometimes embroidered with desert florals.

Mega-puffers in bandana print, boot-cut denim, fringed leather skirts, and a murderously tough cracked leather trench, also fringed, completed the posse of Puglisi proposals. The red-bloodedly abundant Florentine maximalism that is at the soul of Cavalli was further amplified through the house’s fang-heeled footwear and tiger-head handbags.