ROBERTO CAVALLI
THERE was an imposter at the Roberto Cavalli show today – it began as you might expect: we walked in to a room that had been decorated to look like the inside of a grand Italian palazzo, with candle-lit chandeliers all the way to the vanishing point – the models appeared to walk out half way down the room – very clever. A harpsichord played us in so that we felt like we were really taking our places in the Italian court to judge Cavalli's latest. The designer himself came out to chat to his fans – and to quell the baying photographers after the announcement that we had even longer to wait until the action could begin. Once the lights (eventually), went down, from the onset we wondered just who had designed these dresses – surely not Cavalli, for whom the sky's the limit when it comes to sex appeal which is always at the top, bottom and middle of his agenda. This is the man who transformed Kate Moss into a Amazonian tree nymph, wearing not much, for his ads last summer – so what on earth was a broderie anglaise maxi dress doing opening the show – followed by another one? No matter, they were beautiful and once we got over the confusion we sat back to enjoy ourselves. Wonderful hippy faded chiffon Liberty prints happily distracted us from the suede tasselled trousers, and a Twenties moment happened by way of the palest peach tiered ribbons of iridescence. An innocent floral print, on spaghetti strapped dresses with a Seventies swirl from the straight neckline, was repeated on a stencilled coat. Then those Liberty prints, all effortlessly gathered and pleated and sometimes mismatched as a blouse appeared under contrasting dungarees, stole the show. Rough edged ruffles – no show has been complete without them this week, crowded neck and hemlines and capped shoulders – it was pretty, but still not what we expect from Cavalli. Neither were the slept-in beehives, sometimes messy enough to recall the woman in the attic – but that could simply have been a nod to the season's trend that has gone so far against last season's Veronica Lake glossy waves – but there was, after all, a Cavalli presence in huge splodges of camellia and lily prints on long silk dresses and, of course, in the nipple revealing, plunge-fronted nightie dresses. Forget the candy floss cocktail looks of pink and peach chiffon and the feathered hems and let the hippy within rejoice: we like this new man that Cavalli is calling himself.
THERE was an imposter at the Roberto Cavalli show today – it began as you might expect: we walked in to a room that had been decorated to look like the inside of a grand Italian palazzo, with candle-lit chandeliers all the way to the vanishing point – the models appeared to walk out half way down the room – very clever. A harpsichord played us in so that we felt like we were really taking our places in the Italian court to judge Cavalli's latest. The designer himself came out to chat to his fans – and to quell the baying photographers after the announcement that we had even longer to wait until the action could begin. Once the lights (eventually), went down, from the onset we wondered just who had designed these dresses – surely not Cavalli, for whom the sky's the limit when it comes to sex appeal which is always at the top, bottom and middle of his agenda. This is the man who transformed Kate Moss into a Amazonian tree nymph, wearing not much, for his ads last summer – so what on earth was a broderie anglaise maxi dress doing opening the show – followed by another one? No matter, they were beautiful and once we got over the confusion we sat back to enjoy ourselves. Wonderful hippy faded chiffon Liberty prints happily distracted us from the suede tasselled trousers, and a Twenties moment happened by way of the palest peach tiered ribbons of iridescence. An innocent floral print, on spaghetti strapped dresses with a Seventies swirl from the straight neckline, was repeated on a stencilled coat. Then those Liberty prints, all effortlessly gathered and pleated and sometimes mismatched as a blouse appeared under contrasting dungarees, stole the show. Rough edged ruffles – no show has been complete without them this week, crowded neck and hemlines and capped shoulders – it was pretty, but still not what we expect from Cavalli. Neither were the slept-in beehives, sometimes messy enough to recall the woman in the attic – but that could simply have been a nod to the season's trend that has gone so far against last season's Veronica Lake glossy waves – but there was, after all, a Cavalli presence in huge splodges of camellia and lily prints on long silk dresses and, of course, in the nipple revealing, plunge-fronted nightie dresses. Forget the candy floss cocktail looks of pink and peach chiffon and the feathered hems and let the hippy within rejoice: we like this new man that Cavalli is calling himself.