Roberto Cavalli SS27: Print Collisions and the Art of Excess
Updated: 6 hours ago
Roberto Cavalli SS27 — Look 01
Images: Roberto Cavalli official collection archive.
Roberto Cavalli's Spring/Summer 2027 collection treats print as a way of assembling a wardrobe, rather than a finishing touch. Animal markings meet enlarged flowers, paisley and flashes of reflective decoration, often within a single outfit. Presented in Milan on September 24, the show occupied the 18:00 slot at Piazza Vetra 7 in Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana's official calendar.
Creative director Fausto Puglisi's collection is titled House of Print. In its official notes, Cavalli describes a return to the archive through the contrasting influences of Los Angeles. That idea becomes clearest in the combinations: familiar garments retain their identity even when several competing patterns are placed together. The tension comes from how they are worn, and from the distance between a loose outer layer and the exposed body beneath.
The first look in the house's runway gallery establishes that approach. A relaxed, long-sleeved shirt combines different animal markings in black and tawny gold. Below it sits a glittering floral miniskirt with a dark red feathered edge; black-and-white striped, open-toe shoes introduce another graphic register. The skirt concentrates decoration around the hips, while the shirt gives the upper body a comparatively easy outline. Its intensity is carefully located, rather than evenly spread.
A second look pairs a close-fitting tiger-striped silhouette, ending in knee-length shorts, with a sweeping robe covered in enormous pink flowers. Yellow open-toe heels add a compact block of colour below. The robe's pale ground is important: it gives the floral forms breathing room and keeps the smaller animal pattern legible. Despite the crowded surface, the contrast in scale makes the components easy to distinguish.
Elsewhere, a triangle top and low-slung, cropped trousers create a more interrupted silhouette. Pink paisley and reflective dots cover the dark trousers; an open, floor-length outer layer brings tiger markings back around them. Much of the torso remains bare. In the photograph, that unprinted area acts as a pause between the densely worked garments, preventing the eye from losing their separate shapes.
The treatment of dresses changes the rhythm. A long-sleeved, deeply plunging pink-and-brown look breaks into narrow hanging strips below the hips. Its irregular edges scatter the print and reveal the legs, giving an otherwise elongated silhouette a deliberately unsettled outline. By contrast, the gallery's final orange-and-cream ensemble gathers its expansive layers around a broad waist sash. Repeated colour connects the pieces without requiring a uniformly tight fit.
These photographs suggest that the collection's most persuasive work lies in proportion. Short hems, cropped trousers, bare midriffs and long robes distribute the visual weight of the prints. The density can become demanding when embellishment and pattern compete at the same scale, but the clearest looks preserve a hierarchy. Puglisi gives Cavalli's appetite for decoration room to expand while keeping the wearer visible within it.
Roberto Cavalli Spring/Summer 2027 — Original collection looks
Selected collection photographs: 11 looks — 01–10, 45.
Roberto Cavalli SS27 — Look 02
Roberto Cavalli SS27 — Look 03
Roberto Cavalli SS27 — Look 04
Roberto Cavalli SS27 — Look 05
Roberto Cavalli SS27 — Look 06
Roberto Cavalli SS27 — Look 07
Roberto Cavalli SS27 — Look 08
Roberto Cavalli SS27 — Look 09
Roberto Cavalli SS27 — Look 10
Roberto Cavalli SS27 — Look 45
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