In the Roberto Cavalli Fall 2024 RTW collection, multi-colour marble prints were featured on fluid and light shirts and slip dresses, pencil and cut-out dresses, trousers, and structured blazers.

Fausto Puglisi exposed his obsession with Italian marble as prints are at the root of Cavalli. “For the first time since I’m here, I wanted to follow my own direction,” he said, “so not using prints from the archive, and [instead] using the codes in terms of slip dress, bias-cut, plissé, and dévoré, but translating them in a way that’s, let’s say, more urban and more tough.”

The collection was a welcome softness to the Fortuny-esque pleats on a camisole and midi-skirt set, and on the swingy dress with a cape-like back in a velvet patterned to look like ornate wallpaper. Though the techniques used to reproduce marble’s veins and flakes on the floor-length dévoré dresses were doubtless complicated, the clingy results looked easy to wear while remaining elegant. And the same can be said for the crinkly slip dresses whose mottled prints almost looked tie-dyed.