It was refreshing to see the usual flamboyance of Roberto Cavallis second line, Just Cavalli, tempered this season without losing any of its exuberance. There was a new stripped-back, energised, haute-street feel.
He started with blocks of clean white a beaded hip-length leather biker jacket, a sparkling t-shirt or flippy tennis-pleat skirt and interspersed those with washed-out florals, bleached-distressed denim, cheetah, or crisp blue neo-classical prints.
A well-edited mixture of silhouettes structured and soft meant that Cavalli could play with his house strengths. Firm-shouldered little bomber jackets or longer lean jackets gave the structure, while his beautiful scarf prints, in whirls of sunflower and navy tie-dye and animal prints covering floaty dresses with trailing wispy hems gave a light, fresh feel.
Gone was the overtly sexualised or the searingly tight ok, so there were short, second-skin dresses (sparkling and colour-drenched in print) but they looked sporty not slutty. And where there was transparency, strategically placed prints covered breasts while diaphanous skirts were cut with scooped-out opaque panels that covered the knickerline.
Cool, in the form of sparkling sequinned sweatshirts and tasteful, in the restrained use of naked flesh, made for a rejuvenated Just Cavalli collection.
