The Roberto Cavalli Fall 2023 RTW collection featured hedonistic touches, with patchwork leather trimmed in crystals, animalia motifs of many kinds, and fur—faux fur with denim beign the focal point.

Beyond the archival references, the mood board was filled up with early-aughts photos of Kate Moss in black lace and pictures of Georgia O’Keeffe and Millicent Rogers in their high-desert muftis. A 2022 trip through the American Southwest is still reverberating with Puglisi, and he conjured the aesthetic with tooled leather, silver studding, and turquoise beads.

This collection lived up to Roberto Cavalli’s reputation for excess and then some. All together on the runway, it could feel like information overload, but backstage Puglisi shrugged it off. “It’s just a bunch of separates,” he said, and he made the point when he showed a studded and beaded leather motorcycle jacket on both a man and a woman.

Emotions run high as journalists, models and VIPS come together to watch Fausto Puglisi at work on the final touches of his collection about to debut on the runway.