EXCESS IS HIS SUCCESS
Italian designer known for his flamboyant style visits China, where his brand is becoming increasingly popular. Mark Graham reports.
It is hard not to be captivated by the sheer exuberance of Roberto Cavalli, a designer who has been living the champagne life for the past four decades and — at the age of 74 — showing no signs of cutting back on partying his way around the globe, traveling by private jet or personal yacht.
The Italian designer, who came to Beijing to launch the second of his stores in the country, is the king of bling, an individual who makes flamboyant, even outrageous, clothes, and believes in setting an extravagant example. Cavalli, as his Instagram followers will know, seems to be permanently in some kind of exotic location — posing at a Hollywood party with A-listers, on a scuba driving trip, or with one of his collection of superfast Ferrari sports cars.
The always-confident entrepreneur draws no line between business and pleasure, partying with the very people who are his clients. Among the celebrities who wear Cavalli’s clothes, and count him as personal friends, are David Beckham and wife Victoria Beckham, Cindy Crawford, Madonna, Beyonce, Sting and Jennifer Lopez.
“My customers are the richest and most beautiful women in the world so I have to go and see them and know their habits and wishes and create something special for them,” he says. “Minimalism? I don’t believe in it, even though some people like it. If you love yourself, how can you be minimalist if you are going to a party? If you wear minimalist design then nobody pays attention to you. Fashion should be like art— if you go to a mall today, so many designers look the same.”
During his Beijing visit, Cavalli took time out to speak to a clearly awed group of students at the Beijing Institute of Fashion of at a seminar organized by Vogue China. It was a long way from Cavalli’s usual world, which is unrelentingly glamorous and vividly colorful, but it in no way diluted his irrepressible enthusiasm. The would-be designers were captivated by the rags-to-riches story of the humble-background Italian.
Cavalli studied classical art when he was a teenager in his home city, Florence, which was the birthplace of the Renaissance movement.
The designer’s major, early-career innovation also involved taking a different tack, looking at a familiar object in a slightly different way, in his case experimenting by putting prints onto lightweight leather. By taking the process a stage further, the designer worked out that he could integrate leather into denim jeans.
This was in the era when blue jeans tended to be just that, unadorned by any kind of print, or deliberate distressing, studs or jewelry. The pioneering, new-look Cavalli jeans proved to be hugely popular, giving him the confidence to try other ways of mixing and matching.
“After starting by making sexy jeans I began to be the designer of the red carpet,” says Cavalli. “I became really, really famous. All the other designers copied me, they could see how Mr Cavalli became famous and they realized itwas important tohave stars on the red carpet— they started paying people to wear their dresses.
“Excess proved to be my success. Animals are my passion, and my designs reflect that. I took risks when I did the animal prints. After animals my inspiration was flowers. I love to create impact, my design is never geometric, I find it is cold, not sexy, and my fans don’t like this kind of thing. I try to make my fans happy and with experience I know what they want.”
Cavalli garments are undoubtedly creations that make women feel special: Talk to anyone who has dressed in one of his animal-print, figurehugging outfits and they will say that it imbues them with an air of femininity and confidence.
The Cavalli style is becoming increasingly popular in China although it does take a certain confidence and panache to wear clothes that are guaranteed to attract attention. Fashionistas looking for subtlety are advised to shop elsewhere.
“I like the culture and the designs of China,” he says. “With Chinese women, I think there is a lot of difference between the young and the less young. The younger Chinese girls are so tall and so beautiful they take care of themselves and how they look. The younger ones start to understand what it means to be beautiful and sexual— which is good for my business.
“I came to China late compared to other names but that is the moment for me, whenthey start to love Roberto Cavalli. In Beijing, much like in Paris and Rome and Milan, they stop me in the street to take a picture. My god!”
The women on the street would have encountered an individual who dresses from head to toe in, naturally enough, Just Cavalli, although the boss’s personal choices of attire are surprisingly low key. Usually he opts for an all-black theme … sweater, jacket, jeans and cowboy boots. In summertime, the garb changes to all white.