Roberto Cavalli, the Italian designer who infused the print-led boho look with sex appeal, has died at 83. His passing was confirmed by the brand. “The Roberto Cavalli company shares condolences with Mr. Cavalli’s family. His legacy remains a constant source of inspiration,” said Roberto Cavalli’s CEO Sergio Azzolari.
By the time shows started to go digital (circa 2000), Cavalli was a well-established golden name in fashion; an elder, even, enjoying a second round of renown. He exuded Hefner vibes (minus the robe) when he took his fall 2001 bow smoking a pipe. (The designer was in fact asked to redesign the Playboy bunny costume in 2005.) By then the leonine Cavalli was living the good life, something that he achieved with braggadocio and brain power—and against the odds. In the context of Cacvalli’s life story, the body worship and forthright sexiness of his work, could be seen more broadly as an affirmation of life itself, which, from a young age he understood to be fragile.
Born in Florence in 1940, Cavalli’s maternal grandfather was a member of the Macchiaioli group of Italian Impressionists. His father, an anti-fascist who is thought to have been a mine surveyor, was shot by the Nazi forces when Cavalli was just three years old. The psychological impact was expressed physically through a stutter. “It was not easy for me to speak, the shock,” the designer told Luke Leitch in a 2011 interview. To support the family, his mother started sewing at home, taking in seamstresses to help her. At 17, a confident Cavalli enrolled at the Academy of Art in Florence to study art and architecture. There he met and fell in love with his first wife and the mother of two of his children, Silvanella Giannoni.
In 1960, after hand-painting some sweaters