Last May, a super talented Italian designer created looks for Jennifer Lopez on the occasion of The Global Citizen VAX Live Concert in Inglewood, California. He sketched a Cavalli minidress for her performance. J. Lo was so divine in that custom-made cut-out lemon yellow minidress with black piping and bejeweled leopard heads. Her forty dancers also wore Cavalli on stage, where the colors grape, lime, fuchsia and indigo created a rainbow effect.
Fashion designer Fausto Puglisi appears to have had a magic touch from the very start. What distinguishes his design is its vitality, its sense that life goes on.
Last October, he was appointed as the new creative director of Roberto Cavalli Maison. He succeeds Paul Surridge.
Like a modern today alchemist, designer to the stars Fausto Puglisi is re-distilling, re-shaping, and re-inventing the vocabulary of the luxury house Roberto Cavalli that for five decades has been contributing to the history of fashion through flamboyant, sensual clothes.
The Italian clothing designer, 44, has dressed top celebrities ranging from Whitney Houston to Madonna, from Beyoncé to Kylie Minogue, from Rihanna to Jennifer Lopez. Today, he speaks about his new mission at Cavalli’s and reveals his zestful vision.
Mr. Puglisi, how are you going to refresh Roberto Cavalli’s identity and heritage?
Just by being myself. But at the same time, I will respect yet twist out of shape the unique codes of a fashion house that made women and men around the world dream.
What are the key concepts to focus on in this new chapter of Cavalli?
The core concepts that represent my creative direction are inclusion, richness, Italianness, sexiness, all are resulting into a vivid, vibrant, and fearless aesthetic. I develop my messages of inclusion and beauty. I amplify the dialogue between cultures, diversity, and multiplied aesthetic. Dialogue and multiculturalism are the real richness that can save us.
You said you want to “amaze” Mr. Roberto Cavalli himself, the Florentine designer who founded the house in the early 1970s, “because he deserves it,” you said. So will you magnify Cavalli’s identity in its stylistic audacity and anti-minimalism?
The DNA of Cavalli that has made history can only be valued and celebrated. We want to interpret that DNA and speak the future’s language by breaking the habits and offering new content and aesthetic codes. I will do it “my way,” like Frank Sinatra, another Sicilian!
Right, because you were born in Messina, Sicily, an island at the crossroads of history. Is there a link between your designs and the aesthetic, artistic culture of Sicily?
Sicily has been a cultural melting pot since Antiquity. Think about the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Byzantines, the Normans, the Spaniards, and more. So many different cultures had an extraordinary impact on our identity, from Arab architecture to Baroque art. All that contrast is in my DNA and forges my aesthetic vision.
Does the city of Messina represent for you what Florence meant for Mr. Cavalli? To create, he needed to breathe the art of Florence, which his family history was also imbued with, being the grandson of a Macchiaiolo painter whose work is in the Uffizi Gallery.
My hometown Messina is inside me, but I need the world to create.
Messina’s history is tragic. On the anthropological level, it affirms the suffering of humanity. The 1908 Messina earthquake was the most destructive ever to hit Europe. The local population — 150,000 — was reduced to hundreds; survivors had to emigrate to other Italian cities and America. Going back in time, also the Black Death arrived in Europe in October 1347 through Messina when Genoese ships from the Black Sea docked at the Messina port. From there, the bubonic plague spread throughout Europe. And Messina was also the last European city to recover from the successive waves of the pestilence that plagued the pre-industrial world. All that pain clashes with the idea of glamor written in the Cavalli DNA. You need to keep up with the sense of glamour, but which is “your” renewed concept of glamor?
I believe that only difficult places can generate a modern, bold vocabulary that breaks the patterns of boredom. Only those places are capable of speaking like Rock’n’Roll or Hip Hop to the new generation. I believe glamor comes only from great contrasts and suffering. Everything that comes from hard situations can generate beauty and glamor itself.
Generally, what is your relationship with painting or sculpture? Do they have an impact on your work?
Yes! The essential artists are Caravaggio, Jeff Koons, Picasso, Jacques Louis David, Damien Hirst, and Giotto. For me, art is everything, exactly like music!
At 18, you moved to NYC, where you first worked as a waiter in Robert De Niro’s restaurant, the Tribeca Grill. Your cousin was a cook there. You were already designing clothes, weren’t you?
Yes. After my high school diploma, I yearned for new experiences. I was a young Sicilian boy who dreamed of America as the best place to learn.
And in that restaurant, I had the chance to meet Whitney Houston’s stylist, Patti Wilson, who believed in me from the very beginning.
You consequently met and dressed the American singing sensation of the 1980s and ’90s who died a tragic death in 2012. Can you please share a personal memory of Whitney Houston?
I remember her extraordinary strength and when she told me: “I want to support you.”
Then you lived in California for years. There, the influential boutique Maxfield picked up your early designs. But one day, visiting Italy, you met the Sicilian design duo Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, who endorsed your artistry, so you got your big break.
Yes, it was pure causality that I stayed. I was about to go back to the US again when Domenico Dolce made me an indispensable proposal that marked the rise of my career.
You began to sell your clothes in Milan’s Dolce & Gabbana boutique and be part of their new-gen retail project, Spiga 2. The creation of your brand, Fausto Puglisi, followed naturally.
Correct. Then, in 2013, I had my first runaway show at the Milan Fashion Week. Both the “almighty” Anna Wintour and Ed Filipowski recommended it. They believed in me from the start.
Who is the new Roberto Cavalli woman?
The women around the world. I interpret the needs and desires of women and men with strong personalities.I take the opportunity to tell you that we will be implementing the accessories segment and expanding the menswear. In addition, I will showcase my first Roberto Cavalli Men’s collection, the Spring Summer 2022 Men’s collection, in June.
Last February, in your “Zero” Roberto Cavalli collection that signaled your debut with the label, you revisited Roberto Cavalli’s signature animal prints. Will animal prints remain an indispensable Cavalli classic together with the avant-garde leather processing Roberto invented in the 1970s and his sexy rock ‘n’ roll denim?
Animal prints are a style statement. They epitomized glamor for centuries, from the great emperors to the divas of the 1950s. They were a symbol of wealth and a source of inspiration. Cavalli made them his own through his amazing creations. Zebra and tiger stripes and leopard spots express a sense of freedom. They will be the protagonist of my following collections. Those graphic patterns were already in my Zero collection, and indeed I will continue to define them, evolve them more and more.
Founder Roberto Cavalli said he used animal prints because he copied nature which is “the closest thing to God, the best designer, so I started to copy God,” he said. Is nature the supreme beauty?
Definitely. And in the natural world, respect for differences is evident. Some orchids offer an unexpected color combination. They are masterpieces because of that mix. There are tropical fish of clashing colors and of such unusual beauty as to convey a fantastic harmony.
How about the sea?
It gives me a sense of absolute freedom.
As an independent fashion designer, you were the first to collaborate with Madonna, who knows how to express herself when it comes to fashion. In 2015, you designed her Rebel Heart tour costumes and her cult black coat with fur collar.
I was so honored… Madonna also chose me for creating her look on the cover of Elle magazine international. Not only do I have enormous respect for her, but I am also extremely grateful to her. I can’t wait to dress her in Cavalli!
Can you please offer an anecdote about her?
I was attending the Madame X Tour rehearsals in 2019. One night, in Brooklyn, she sang Like a Prayer repeatedly, over and over until perfection from her moves to the stage lights and the dance choreography. At 6 A.M., we were still there. I was so exhausted but decided I should have something to eat at a Mexican grill nearby.
At what age did you discover your passion for fashion design?
During my childhood. In a primary school composition, I wrote: “I will be a fashion designer once grown-up” (he smiles).
How do you know when you’ve found an idea that works?
It is a matter of intuition. If it is a winning idea, I feel it immediately. That is why I always try to insist on doing it my way.
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