The Roberto Cavalli creative director folded Sicily, Los Angeles and a 2001 “Sex and the City” cast photograph into one spring 2027 collection in Milan, then put the heaviest handwork on the jeans
MILAN – Fausto Puglisi put three references on one spring 2027 Roberto Cavalli runway and made them agree: a 15th-century devotional image of the baby Jesus, the Manhattan of 2001, and the tattooed beach dwellers of Los Angeles. The picture at the center of his moodboard was Antonello da Messina’s Virgin Annunciate, a panel by the Renaissance master that now hangs in Palermo, Sicily.
Puglisi, who has led the house since October 2020, said he wanted to mix opposites while staying within all the codes of Cavalli: animal print, embellishment, denim cut close to the body. Six years into the job, he is arguing that those codes can be recombined rather than retired.
Three Cities, One Wardrobe
Puglisi used the show to make a case for his native Sicily, the light and shadow of Los Angeles, and Manhattan. न्यूयॉर्क arrived by accident. He said he came across photographs of the “Sex and the City” cast in Cavalli prints and denim and took the reference straight from there, reading the pairing as what the city wore in the late 1990s and early 2000s. That gave him permission to lean on jeans and separates, then pile embroidery and embellishment on top.
“I believe we need some sexiness and happiness right now,” he said.
The Handwork Went on the Jeans
Denim carried the collection. Micro minis, shorts and skinny flared jeans came down the runway loaded with feathers and fur, crystals, sparkly fringe and fabric sunflowers, often several at once. The minis and shorts were cut as small as a doll’s clothes, a silhouette aimed squarely at the GLP-1 generation. Under them, sheer tops and long silk robes in floral, zebra-stripe and leopard-spot prints.
Then the show flipped registers. Flowing robes, some printed, others flocked, moved alongside a run of gowns whose long frayed strips read as Stevie Nicks in the 1970s.
A Palette From a Panel, and Then Pop
Ruffle-tiered slip dresses drew their color from the da Messina panel, which scholars place in Sicily around 1476 and which now hangs in the Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo. Other looks borrowed from Pop: a midi-skirt fringed in electric green, a miniskirt sparkling in dark red. Sarong skirts carried small bits of gold and shells. Sunflowers grew out of the denim hems.
The Front Row as Distribution
Cardi B took the front row in a printed silk robe with fur trim, round sunglasses and leopard-print stilettos, arriving with a posse of photographers. Her outfit was the collection’s thesis in a single body: print, fur, leopard, maximum. The staging around her had the scale of one of her own sets.
That is the Cavalli method. The clothes are the advertisement, and they work hardest on people who already have an audience.
Why the References Are Merchandise
A Renaissance Annunciation, 2001 Manhattan and the California beach do not cohere on paper. On the मार्ग they do, because the collision is a merchandising decision rather than a mood.
Strip the styling back and the commercial spine of the show is a pair of jeans and a printed top, the entry point into a house whose identity rests on print and embellishment. Puglisi put his heaviest handwork on the denim and the micro minis, the garments a more cautious Italian spring lineup would have written off as filler.
Roberto Cavalli died in 2024 at 83. The codes he established when he launched the label in 1970 now have to sell to customers born decades after the animal print became a house signature. Puglisi answers that every season, and spring 2027 answers it plainly: keep the painting, keep the party, and sell the जींस.
See the complete collection below:
Images courtesy of Roberto Cavalli
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