Sometimes it s best if designers don t admit to their inspirations. Anyone who loves Morocco or the written works of Paul Bowles or the music of Devendra Banhart could rightly take exception to Roberto Cavalli s adopting their allure as the wellspring of his latest collection. In this case, they were an of-the-moment hodgepodge to drape around the show s concept, "Bohemian Safari"—and besides, by the time the evening-gowned Natasha Poly followed an army of bathing-suited boys onto the catwalk, any notion of bohemia or safari had been well and truly obliterated.
That doesn t mean there wasn t extreme entertainment value in the Cavalli presentation. Open your eyes, let your mind go, and you could almost have been looking at a dress rehearsal of Romeo + Juliet: The Reunion. Florentine artisanship is in Cavalli s blood—one taste of his wine, olive oil, or chocolate is ample proof—so he is perfectly capable of delivering twenty-first-century Renaissance wear: something as convincingly arcane as a brocade blazer or a blanket coat with woven fur lapel. And, of course, anything that involves skins is his speciality. Cavalli loves his printer, too. That was where the exploded floral print on a jacket came from. Likewise the palm-tree-leaf print on a pair of jeans, and the sunset print everywhere else. But Oxford bags? In the future, it might be best if the designer applied the Romeo + Juliet test: Would a Montague or Capulet wear this outfit?
