It happened during a Fashion Week more than ten years ago. "Cavalli" was opening a store in San Babila, here in Milan, and a crowd of onlookers was trying to get close to the celebrities attending the event. At the end of the grand evening, suddenly, violating the security cordon, raising his arms, he jumped towards all of us on the street: himself, Roberto Cavalli, to mingle among the people and talk to everyone who asked him a question or simply greeted him. With total humility and the tranquility of someone who seemed to have gone out for a walk, he remained conversing like someone who casually meets an acquaintance. This direct and unique treatment accompanied him throughout his life.

This magnetism was what attracted many divas of music and cinema. Sharon Stone, Cindy Crawford, Beyoncé, the Spice Girls, Christina Aguilera, Madonna, or Jennifer Lopez wanted to dress Cavalli to feel like Cavalli women, that is, strong, powerful, and sexy. "My dream is to make dresses that change women's lives," he used to say. He didn't like to be defined as a designer, but as an artist of fabrics. His grandfather, a painter affiliated with the "Macchiaioli" artistic movement, with works exhibited in the "Gallerie degli Uffizi", perhaps imbued him with an artistic and pictorial vision that he transmitted to fashion. Cavalli attended the "Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze".

Roberto Cavalli created his eponymous brand in 1970, the same year he patented a novel leather printing system. Two years later, he opened a small store in the iconic Saint Tropez. In 1977, he met his second wife, Eva Durner, who became a formidable creative partner. Thanks to her, Roberto Cavalli, then very dedicated to horses, refocused on fashion. His second professional life began in 1994 when he launched his aged, faded, and colored jeans, treated with sandblasting technique. The final push to enter Olympus, however, was given by Vogue Italia director Franca Sozzani, who alongside the well-known Anna Dello Russo, completely redesigned his image.

A whirlwind of colors, more prints, dresses almost scandalous that reinforce the power of women. The advertising campaigns dazzled the world and attracted stars who could not remain indifferent to Cavalli's style. Even men, like Lenny Kravitz, were seduced by the designer from Florence. The New York Times dubbed him "Leopard King", "Re dell'animalier"; "very sexy, very animal print and very, very Italian," describes him the British The Independent.

Because Roberto Cavalli deserves credit for having transformed women into felines, defining their sensuality through prints and patterns inspired by the animal world, the wild world. In 2002, the bar conceived by architect and designer Ron Arad was inaugurated in Milan, named "Just Cavalli Café", which became a center of the city's fashion scene. Cavalli thus expanded his universe and left his mark on the life of the great metropolis.

In 2015, Roberto Cavalli sold 90% of his brand and retired to private life. A year ago, at 82, he announced the arrival of his sixth child. In February of this year, I was outside the Cavalli Autumn-Winter 2024-2025 show at Fashion Week. The great absentee was, however, present in the glamour and beauty of the famous women who arrived and pronounced his name as if he were there nearby, perhaps like that night, which will remain forever in my memory, in which the great Roberto talked and laughed with us with his unmistakable Tuscan accent.