Roberto Cavalli Was Never Tame

Before animal prints became a fashion-week staple, Roberto Cavalli was already making them his own. The Florentine designer’s fascination with nature began with his experiments in textile printing, particularly on leather. He patented an innovative leather-printing process in the early 1970s, and when he presented his first collection in 1972, animal prints, stretch fabrics and unconventional surfaces were already part of his vocabulary.

But Cavalli’s relationship with the wild was never limited to leopard spots. Tiger stripes, snakeskin, zebra, tropical florals and other references to nature became recurring signatures of the house. By the 1990s, animal prints had become central to Cavalli’s international identity—wrapped around body-conscious silhouettes, denim, crystals and unapologetic glamour.

Enter Fausto Puglisi

When Fausto Puglisi took over the creative direction of Roberto Cavalli in 2020, he inherited one of fashion’s most recognisable visual languages. Rather than stripping it back, the Sicilian designer has continued to work with the house’s archive, bringing its sensuality and maximalism into a contemporary wardrobe.

For Spring/Summer 2027, Puglisi takes that idea even further.

The Wild Returns For SS27

Presented in Milan, “House of Prints” is essentially Cavalli turned up to full volume. Leopard meets tiger, florals collide with animal motifs, and patchwork brings seemingly opposing prints together. Low-rise jeans, crystal embellishment, feathers, sheer fabrics, bra tops, tiny skirts and body-skimming dresses give the collection a distinctly Cavalli kind of sensuality.

What makes the collection interesting is the sheer amount of print-on-print. Nothing seems particularly interested in standing alone. Animal patterns are layered with florals, denim is embellished with crystals and feathers, and fabrics are deliberately distressed, mixed and reworked.

It feels less like a quiet revival of Cavalli’s archive and more like Puglisi opening the doors to it and letting everything out at once.

Nearly six decades after Roberto Cavalli began experimenting with printed leather, the wild remains one of the house’s most enduring languages and for SS27, it still refuses to be tamed.