What if Alvin Ailey, the African-American dancer and choreographer, and the Marchesa Luisa Casati, the famed Italian heiress, art patron, and clotheshorse, had the chance to meet? The Sicilian designer Fausto Puglisi has always had a thing for the USA—he has the Hollywood sign tattooed on his forearm—and this season he juxtaposed the hedonistic, molto Italiano leanings of the Roberto Cavalli label with sexy American pragmatism.
The cut of the black leather pantsuit that accompanied the spangled bra top of the first look was boyish in its proportions. And the A-line tutu skirt that pranced out after it—a callback to one of his earliest eponymous collections—did so on pointy-toed loafers you never would’ve seen on one of Cavalli’s own runways. There was another cocktail number not much more substantial than a leotard with a neckline that Puglisi likened to Princess Diana’s revenge dress.
The kohl-eyed Casati, meanwhile, gave the collection its jet-black palette and rich textures. “I want to be a living work of art,” she once said, and legend has it she wore necklaces of snakes and traveled with pet cheetahs. Puglisi’s animal print of choice was a photographic rendering of silver fox on silk chiffon that he used for a chemisier dress and a rather more dramatic fluttering gown that kicked up the dust in the warehouse venue.
Color briefly came into the picture via Caravaggesque blossoms embroidered on a strapless LBD and painted on roomy pleated jeans. But it was brief. Even a circa spring 2004 bustier dress with shredded skirts in shades of fiery red and orange faded to black, a recurring color at Milan fashion week so far. Puglisi blamed the state of the world. “I’m happy but I’m also sad; I’m sure you read the same articles,” he said. For the length of the show, at least, Puglisi did his darndest to put all those worries aside.
