Erika Cavallini (Q3048)
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Erika Cavallini is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Erika Cavallini |
Erika Cavallini is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Erika Cavallini spent her summer in the Spanish town of Cadaqués, where Dalí and his eccentric Russian muse Gala famously built their Surrealist nest. Cavallini was so fascinated by their tempestuous love story that she turned it into the narrative behind her Spring collection. “I imagined a woman madly in love,” she explained. “She longs to reach her lover, they can’t bear to be apart, she’s almost in haste so she packs a few things in her travel canvas tote and she leaves for a summer journey of love.”The tote in question was actually huge and made of linen striped canvas, matching an oversize shirtdress worn over pajama pants or a cotton jumpsuit of loose-fitting proportions. The collection exuded a sense of confident ease and comfort, with linear, fluid shapes enhancing a dynamic sense of movement; ankle-grazing goddess-like tunics in light crumpled wool in warm earth tones had just a slight exotic flair without being too folksy. Dusters and elongated waistcoats were soft-tailored, their structure almost weightless, while dresses in smooth silk satin were built around plays of asymmetrical pleats and draping; they had a liquid, sensuous charm, which nicely contrasted with the artisanal feel that Cavallini favors.The designer is also a skilled potter; for the show, she molded a limited edition of vases with the Japanese raku technique. Suspended by thin leather straps, the beautiful, poetic objects were made into little satchel-like bags, which the eccentric Gala would’ve absolutely adored.
20 September 2018
Erika Cavallini recently took a week off and went to the Italian countryside; longtime friends lent her their beautiful old family home. So inspired was she by the peaceful surroundings that she started working right there on her Resort collection, which came infused with the same languid ease and tranquility she felt while living in that house.“I felt a need for softness, nothing had to be too constructed or constricting,” she explained. “I avoided anything too heavy or too large; everything had to be light and almost liquid.” Cavallini is a purist; she doesn’t go for elaborate silhouettes or maximalist excesses. Quite the contrary. Her favorite fashion eras are the ’20s, when women favored liberating, elongated lines, and the ’30s, with their sensuous bias-cut column dresses. She couldn’t resist tucking a glamorous absinthe satin number into the Resort lineup, and it was the high note of an otherwise sotto voce collection, where the house in the country, its décor, and memories dictated the rules.Finding inspiration in domestic bliss, the designer transformed antique white crochet curtains into lace tunics worn over fluid pants; finely embroidered tablecloths were translated into tiered linen dresses; and the prismatic colors of a kaleidoscope found their way on billowy long caftans in silk chiffon. A rose motif was redesigned with a ballpoint pen and given a graphic outline in black and white; it was printed on pleated sundresses worn over palazzo pants.Cavallini is expanding her line with a new offering of bags and shoes; being quite business savvy, she also worked on a capsule collection of sporty tracksuits, hoodies, and shoppers, where she tried her hand at the ubiquitous logomania and slogan obsession. But she did it her way: “I’m a woman, not a brand” was her forceful message, printed on tees and sweats. Clever.
26 June 2018
Erika Cavallini closed her soulful show by storming the catwalk surrounded by her army of models. She really looked like one of them, not just because of her good looks, but mostly because her diverse casting included many real, grown-up women. It felt as if a breath of real life was sweeping across the runway. It was an emotional moment; if only we could experience (just a few) others like this, fashion (week) would be definitely much more fulfilling and meaningful.Cavallini called her collection Misery and Nobility; there wasn’t much misery in it, though. What she wanted to convey was probably how old clothes, shredded, mended, torn apart as they could be from years of wear, still hold their soul and their dignity. So, in the show, coats were patched together haphazardly, as memories from the past often are, and assembled from different fabrics and worn inside out; beautiful vintage-inspired slip dresses in bejeweled lace were worn under masculine oversize suits or under huge hand-knit mohair sweaters, as if mementos from a glorious heritage were worn casually for the everyday; shredded hems abounded; and linings were ripped and left unstitched, as if marking the passing of time. Rhinestone brooches, like antique family heirlooms, were pinned on the plunging neckline of a stunning ’40s-inspired purple evening dress, on satin slippers, and on a powder pink oversize hand-knit twinset worn with fluid pants. It could’ve looked like just another trip to granny’s attic if it weren’t for the delicacy and the authenticity with which Cavallini handled the subject.There was a touch of theatrical indulgence in the collection, which made the work of the great Pina Bausch come to mind; the spirit of another great, Martin Margiela, for whom Cavallini briefly worked, also resurfaced in the collection. But why not? They’re both mighty, noble references; the designer honored their legacy with her own heartfelt, honest, and truly ravishing interpretation.
23 February 2018
Erika Cavallini had a dream: “I’ve always wanted to have real women walk my shows, but somehow it never happened. It seemed too challenging and difficult, and I didn’t want to be misunderstood. But this time, it felt so right, and it happened effortlessly,” she explained backstage, where she was surrounded by a diverse cast of women of all ages, heights, and sizes. “They’re friends, artists, DJs, editors, teachers, gallerists, daughters, and mothers—people I just stopped in the street because I liked their looks,” she said, beaming with contagious excitement. They looked gorgeous; it was a beautiful, joyous sight.Cavallini’s designs have an experimental edge, which comes from her background as a young intern at Martin Margiela in the ’90s; it’s a style that she has always favored and you feel that it’s really part of who she is—it just fits her, both personally and conceptually. Strong tailoring, deconstructed volumes, a play on proportions, repurposed vintage: These are the foundations upon which she has built her stylistic identity. Even if sometimes one could perceive a soupçon of a derivative feel, you have to acknowledge her integrity and the passion and energy that she has poured into finding her personal take on such a monumental legacy. Margiela’s spirit still hovers over generations of designers. For Spring, Cavallini seemed to have come into her own.She softened volumes, keeping lines elongated and fluid; her sometimes elaborate tailoring looked relaxed, infused with elegant comfort.Femininityandfreedomwere the passwords of a collection that celebrated diversity in a respectful, intelligent way. Long tunics in pastel colors were cut with skillful effortlessness and were roomy enough to accommodate different body types, enhancing seduction by freeing movement. “A dress must embrace the body, it has to welcome the body in,” the designer explained, pointing out a lingerie-inspired liquid slip dress with a plunging neckline. It was so delicately embroidered, it looked ethereal—yet it felt substantial in the smooth thickness of silk crepe.Colors were dusted and delicate, highlighting the puristic femininity of the collection; printed floral motifs were a first, underlining the lingerie-inspired feel that was otherwise toughened up when mixed with deconstructed tailoring, as in camisoles worn layered and loose underneath oversize blazers with cut-off sleeves and see-through palazzo pants.
Elsewhere, matching bras were worn over elongated cotton jackets or over crisp masculine shirts—a styling trick that often looks preposterous. Here, it had a powerful yet graceful flair—a trench worn as a backpack conveyed the same attitude. It all felt believable, and the real women wearing it on the catwalk looked naturally at ease.
21 September 2017
Almost every fashion designer sooner or later mines Luis Buñuel’s iconic film,The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. The legendary Spanish director served the bourgeois style quite well, revealing thetrèschic perversity underneath its conformist surface. Erika Cavallini just joined the bandwagon of Buñuel fanatics. In her Pre-fall collection, references to the movie abounded. She didn’t elaborate on its surrealistic, depraved side, though; rather, she explored its safer, more conventional attitude. “It’s about a sense of restrained elegance, almost severe,” she emphasized. “The idea of dressing up for social occasions—the foyers of theaters, receptions at home in well-furnished drawing rooms. A sense of formality.”Elegance is a volatile and opaque concept these days; nobody really knows what it means anymore. For this reason, perhaps, the designer reverted to a fundamental sense of sobriety, almost of modesty. “I call it turtleneck elegance,” she explained, “austere, put-together, soigné.”To make her point, she put white turtlenecks under almost every dress, blouse, jacket, and jumper in the collection. She even layered a masculine shirt under an evening dress. She kept the silhouette controlled and elongated; collars were buttoned down and cuffs were carefully finished with cuff links; prints were wallpaper-inspired and discreet. Cavallini softened and tamed her signature oversize volumes in favor of smoother, more feminine shapes, as in the riding coats with accented waistlines. Although bourgeois-inspired, the clothes didn’t look unassuming or sedate; on the contrary, they expressed the designer’s idiosyncratic sensibility and assertive personality. “I favor a restrained, ‘covered-up’ look not because I’m shy or because I want to conceal my flaws,” she said. “Quite the contrary. It’s because I’m confident of my femininity—it cannot be measured by the centimeters of skin that a plunging neckline leaves exposed.”
23 January 2018
At first glance Erika Cavallini's look doesn't seem designed by, nor suited for, an Italian woman, at least as far as stereotypes are concerned. She doesn't comply to the sexy bombshell cliché associated with our national style, which, being a cliché, is more often than not quite wrong. When it comes to style, Italian women are definitely willing to take risks: Anna Piaggi, Miuccia Prada, Elsa Schiaparelli, are just a few bright examples of out-of-the-box characters. The list could go on.Italy has always been a thriving market for avant-garde fashion, of the highest standard, of course. In the ’90s, Erika Cavallini's closet was one of the many bursting at the seams with the best of Comme, Yohji, Martin, Helmut, Raf, Véronique, and all the Northern clique. Its groundbreaking conceptual spirit has stayed with her, and she has been faithful to a streamlined, almost severe look ever since. Even if along the years it has softened considerably, it still retains a flawless, elegant precision.For Resort, Cavallini played on clean, almost sharp lines and generous volumes, indulging in layering and ample proportions. Her style requires self-assurance, a love for masculine codes reworked into feminine shapes and for an exacting idea of comfort. Softness was sustained by structure, as in blazers depleted of any stiff construction that morphed into malleable shirts. Tucked into voluminous high-waisted palazzo pants, almost ample as skirts, they made for a strong proposition. Corsets were worn over a jumpsuit in masculine fabric, emphasizing the waistline, or over a Prince of Wales suit with a ruched skirt. Elsewhere, kaftans looked like elongated masculine shirts with billowing poet sleeves, while kimonos worn over sleek pajama suits were printed in almond green and lavender. They highlighted the sense of structured ease so crucial for the designer: “I always start a collection from what suits me best,” she said. “For me, there's nothing as important as the sense of freedom.”
17 June 2017
Martin Margiela will go down in fashion history as one of the most influential designers of our time—and one of the most wildly copied. Obviously, it’s better being copied that forgotten; however, one wonders if those behind the various Children of Margiela collections we’ve seen on the catwalks in recent seasons would have found their own raison d’être if Margiela’s oeuvre hadn’t provided them with substantial food for inspiration.Erika Cavallini worked briefly at Margiela at the end of the ’90s; the experience seemed to ground her homage today in a direct knowledge of the house’s archetypal codes. The transgressive take on classics and the flair for assemblage of surplus and vintage garments, repurposed and twisted into new shapes, have stayed with her. “My love of vintage goes back to my teenage years, when I couldn’t afford the expensive clothes that I coveted,” she said backstage before this show.This collection had more than its fair share of Margiela-inspired references; blown-up proportions, oversize or shrunken volumes, deconstruction and assemblages were high on Cavallini’s agenda. Yet she managed to keep a fresh, personal perspective. On the one hand, she indulged her feminine, softer side for ruffled floral printed dresses in delicate colors; on the other hand, she played on a tougher note, unmercifully shredding hems as if after a party gone wild, or massively shrinking huge men’s blazer into fitted, shapely, sexy jackets, worn with tight pencil skirts.Repurposed surplus finds became a limited-edition proposition called Replica, which was encrypted into the show as a capsule of a few looks. Ruffled asymmetric skirts were made out of two vintage trenchcoats sewn askew; what in a previous life was a pair of men’s cashmere sweaters became a bi-color V-neck with extra-long sleeves; multiple pairs of denim pants served as morphing material for a full circle skirt or a pinafore-jumpsuit hybrid. Even if the references were too literal at times, the collection felt lively, with a graceful, cool vibe.
23 February 2017