Given a 40th anniversary in business to celebrate, most designers would be pulling out all the wham-bam-thank-you-ma am stops. Roberto Cavalli started his show that way, with three gothic ninjas trolling dramatically down the catwalk into the middle of the Palazzo del Senato s courtyard and lighting a pint-size Olympic flame. But the designer seemed to lose interest fast. When the rain began to douse his open-air audience, the music abruptly stopped and that was it—show over with no finale. There has always been a haphazard quality to Cavalli, the good sitting quite comfortably beside the bad. Over the years, there has been plenty of the very good, but there wasn t enough of it in tonight s show.
One of Cavalli s strengths is the artisanship of Florentine leatherworkers. A blue suede jacket with a spine of studs was a pallid substitute, never mind that there wasn t much leather or suede to begin with. His animal prints have always been a successful signature. They were replaced for this collection by inspirations he d apparently accumulated on a recent trip to Indonesia, but they felt hurried and unformed compared to the sexy specificity of leopard or zebra. And while Cavalli has excelled at a rock-dandy style that promises dark delights, tonight s version looked like he d crossed to the light side. Of course, comparisons are usually invidious. Still, it was a shame when the designer actually had something to celebrate that the evening wasn t more reflective of that.
