Roberto Cavalli: 'The English - oh my God!'
On board his luxury yacht, designer Roberto Cavalli, the 'King of Bling', reveals to Celia Walden what he thinks of Madonna, minimalism and the women who wear his clothes
'There is a real vulgarity in the way women dress at the moment," purrs Roberto Cavalli, stubbing out his cigarette in a turtle-shaped gold ashtray and reaching into his green, lizard-skin manbag for a cigar. "They show off too much and try too hard. They don't understand where the line is between sexy and vulgar. I know where that line is."
King of the world: Roberto Cavalli with Celia WaldenI expected many things from the 64-year-old Italian designer - lover of leopard-print and creator of red-carpet dresses that stay up against all the laws of physics - but not this. Remember the slashed, lime chiffon number worn by Victoria Beckham to her own Full Length and Fabulous ball?
There are many words to describe it: understated is not one of them. But then we are in Cavalli world - a floating parallel universe where the senses are assaulted by a frenzy of satiny animal prints, gilt, mahogany and orchids.
Moored in Cannes for the duration of the film festival, Cavalli's iridescent purple, 130ft yacht acts as a home away from home for reams of celebrity friends - a place where Gwyneth, Beyoncé and Charlize can seek refuge. The day before the interview, an apprehensive assistant called me to explain that Sharon Stone was having "some rest time aboard Roberto's yacht" and could I "please not try to talk to her". Right on cue, Sharon appears, with "bed hair" and no make-up, and wafts across the deck in a transparent kaftan, her hips gently swinging to the sounds of Burt Bacharach.
Nearly 40 years after inventing the patchwork jeans that kick-started his career and prompted the likes of Hermès and Pierre Cardin to snap up his designs, the Florentine has not tired of the good life. His everything-in-excess style - described in wonderfully un-PC terms by his minions as "a siren's chant for stars as well as common people" - has reached its zenith in the past five years, with a vast array of Hollywood stars now acting as ambassadresses for the Cavalli lifestyle. Pleasingly, this hasn't stopped him from being scathing about the rest.
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Lounging on the deck in a semi-transparent black shirt and blue jeans, inscrutable in his dark glasses, he immediately puts me straight on Madonna. "She is not nice with anyone: she doesn't know how to be nice." Mrs Beckham, on the other hand, is showered with praise. "Sadly, now that she's in LA, it's difficult to see one another," he pouts, extending his thick lips into a pantomime sulk. "We talk all the time on the phone, though. She is such a fantastic woman."
Cavalli says the word "woman" with quasi-religious verve; his love of the fairer sex is all-encompassing. "I love women in all their different incarnations. My friends are practically all women. They are much more intelligent than men."
"I am not gay," he adds hastily, holding up a bejewelled hand, his expression suddenly stern. "I detest men - dressed or naked - but women…" The dreamy look returns and, a few feet away, Sharon Stone laughs into her mobile phone. What is it he loves the most about women? He strikes a pensive pose. "Flesh," he concludes.
For all his adoration of womankind, the "King of Bling" has strict behavioural and stylistic rules for them. "Women shouldn't dress in black, and I can't bear all these women swearing: a woman's mouth should always be clean." He finds minimalism so hateful that his face fills with pain at the mere mention of it. "Anyone is capable of doing minimalism," he spits out. "I won't, because it's horrible."
But nothing makes him despair quite like undesirables wearing his clothes: "It happens a lot with women of a certain nationality - I'm sure you can imagine which - and you just want to say 'Give it back!'?
"The English - oh my God," he moans, in a voice so low it crackles. "I shouldn't say this because I live part of the time in London, but they are on a par with the Swiss stylistically." Not even the Queen escapes his disdain. "I don't find her very sexy - with her funny hats and bags…"
If Cavalli hadn't insisted early on that he "hardly drinks at all", and counts only tobacco and sex as his vices, I would have put the slurring of his words and hazy hand gestures down to a few too many morning Mimosas, but it soon becomes apparent that he inflects his voice with what he imagines to be molten sensuality, rather than anything more sinister. "Anything that is natural I adore, but I'm not crazy about drink and I don't do drugs. I would give my life to eliminate drugs from this world."
An unlikely puritan he may be, but there is something of the aged hippy about him. Peppered with gushing non sequiturs such as "I want to explain to the whole world what love is", his sentences often become tangled webs of hyperbole. None the less, I'm beginning seriously to enjoy our meeting. The sun has come out, Sharon's still yapping melodiously in the background, and a series of improbably good-looking deck hands, clad entirely in white, saunter in and out of my line of vision.
In my experience, fashion's key players can be tediously sycophantic. Cavalli, however, is a rarity, having reached a level of success that can no longer be rocked by the airing of strong opinions.
"In 1970 I was the number one designer in the world; people like Armani were nothing next to me," he sighs, taking little breaths in between rushed sentences, as if trying to rein in an exuberance of spirit. "Now, if I have one desire left in life, it's finding a new fabric as versatile and wonderful as denim."
With his designs selling better than ever, and a lucrative commission to dress Michael Jackson for his forthcoming world tour - a brave undertaking if ever there was one - Cavalli says he is unlikely ever to do another diffusion collection like his collaboration with H&M in 2007, which sold out in some shops in 40 minutes.
"I'm very much against all these celebrities doing diffusion lines. Do I suddenly get up in the morning and say that I am going to start a singing career, with the horrible voice that I have? That's what these girls do when they show the world how horrible their fashion ranges are. Money is the most corrosive aspect of life today because it means that all attention to detail is forgotten. Kate Moss's collection was badly made, stupid and bland; you see things like that everywhere. You can't just buy things for the label - it's ridiculous."
Eva, Cavalli's striking young Austrian wife - his second, and the mother of three of his five children - appears, and I ask how it is that their marriage has survived nearly 30 years in showbusiness. "We met when she was only 17: she's an amazing woman and an amazing lover, and now she is an exceptional partner in the business."
His two adult children by his first wife - with whom he remains on good terms - however, are not being groomed to take over the business, Versace-style. "I don't think I'll hand it down to my kids because I like them to choose their own way in life."
As we pad over to the prow of the yacht to take some pictures, I ask whether there is any truth in last year's rumour that he intends to sell his empire in a £500 million deal. "Why would I?" he shrugs. "I don't need the money."
Then, pulling me into his perfumed chest and throwing out his arms out in the manner of Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, he bellows: "I'm the king of the world!"
telegraph.co.uk
On board his luxury yacht, designer Roberto Cavalli, the 'King of Bling', reveals to Celia Walden what he thinks of Madonna, minimalism and the women who wear his clothes
'There is a real vulgarity in the way women dress at the moment," purrs Roberto Cavalli, stubbing out his cigarette in a turtle-shaped gold ashtray and reaching into his green, lizard-skin manbag for a cigar. "They show off too much and try too hard. They don't understand where the line is between sexy and vulgar. I know where that line is."
There are many words to describe it: understated is not one of them. But then we are in Cavalli world - a floating parallel universe where the senses are assaulted by a frenzy of satiny animal prints, gilt, mahogany and orchids.
Moored in Cannes for the duration of the film festival, Cavalli's iridescent purple, 130ft yacht acts as a home away from home for reams of celebrity friends - a place where Gwyneth, Beyoncé and Charlize can seek refuge. The day before the interview, an apprehensive assistant called me to explain that Sharon Stone was having "some rest time aboard Roberto's yacht" and could I "please not try to talk to her". Right on cue, Sharon appears, with "bed hair" and no make-up, and wafts across the deck in a transparent kaftan, her hips gently swinging to the sounds of Burt Bacharach.
Nearly 40 years after inventing the patchwork jeans that kick-started his career and prompted the likes of Hermès and Pierre Cardin to snap up his designs, the Florentine has not tired of the good life. His everything-in-excess style - described in wonderfully un-PC terms by his minions as "a siren's chant for stars as well as common people" - has reached its zenith in the past five years, with a vast array of Hollywood stars now acting as ambassadresses for the Cavalli lifestyle. Pleasingly, this hasn't stopped him from being scathing about the rest.
advertisement
Lounging on the deck in a semi-transparent black shirt and blue jeans, inscrutable in his dark glasses, he immediately puts me straight on Madonna. "She is not nice with anyone: she doesn't know how to be nice." Mrs Beckham, on the other hand, is showered with praise. "Sadly, now that she's in LA, it's difficult to see one another," he pouts, extending his thick lips into a pantomime sulk. "We talk all the time on the phone, though. She is such a fantastic woman."
Cavalli says the word "woman" with quasi-religious verve; his love of the fairer sex is all-encompassing. "I love women in all their different incarnations. My friends are practically all women. They are much more intelligent than men."
"I am not gay," he adds hastily, holding up a bejewelled hand, his expression suddenly stern. "I detest men - dressed or naked - but women…" The dreamy look returns and, a few feet away, Sharon Stone laughs into her mobile phone. What is it he loves the most about women? He strikes a pensive pose. "Flesh," he concludes.
For all his adoration of womankind, the "King of Bling" has strict behavioural and stylistic rules for them. "Women shouldn't dress in black, and I can't bear all these women swearing: a woman's mouth should always be clean." He finds minimalism so hateful that his face fills with pain at the mere mention of it. "Anyone is capable of doing minimalism," he spits out. "I won't, because it's horrible."
But nothing makes him despair quite like undesirables wearing his clothes: "It happens a lot with women of a certain nationality - I'm sure you can imagine which - and you just want to say 'Give it back!'?
"The English - oh my God," he moans, in a voice so low it crackles. "I shouldn't say this because I live part of the time in London, but they are on a par with the Swiss stylistically." Not even the Queen escapes his disdain. "I don't find her very sexy - with her funny hats and bags…"
If Cavalli hadn't insisted early on that he "hardly drinks at all", and counts only tobacco and sex as his vices, I would have put the slurring of his words and hazy hand gestures down to a few too many morning Mimosas, but it soon becomes apparent that he inflects his voice with what he imagines to be molten sensuality, rather than anything more sinister. "Anything that is natural I adore, but I'm not crazy about drink and I don't do drugs. I would give my life to eliminate drugs from this world."
An unlikely puritan he may be, but there is something of the aged hippy about him. Peppered with gushing non sequiturs such as "I want to explain to the whole world what love is", his sentences often become tangled webs of hyperbole. None the less, I'm beginning seriously to enjoy our meeting. The sun has come out, Sharon's still yapping melodiously in the background, and a series of improbably good-looking deck hands, clad entirely in white, saunter in and out of my line of vision.
In my experience, fashion's key players can be tediously sycophantic. Cavalli, however, is a rarity, having reached a level of success that can no longer be rocked by the airing of strong opinions.
"In 1970 I was the number one designer in the world; people like Armani were nothing next to me," he sighs, taking little breaths in between rushed sentences, as if trying to rein in an exuberance of spirit. "Now, if I have one desire left in life, it's finding a new fabric as versatile and wonderful as denim."
With his designs selling better than ever, and a lucrative commission to dress Michael Jackson for his forthcoming world tour - a brave undertaking if ever there was one - Cavalli says he is unlikely ever to do another diffusion collection like his collaboration with H&M in 2007, which sold out in some shops in 40 minutes.
"I'm very much against all these celebrities doing diffusion lines. Do I suddenly get up in the morning and say that I am going to start a singing career, with the horrible voice that I have? That's what these girls do when they show the world how horrible their fashion ranges are. Money is the most corrosive aspect of life today because it means that all attention to detail is forgotten. Kate Moss's collection was badly made, stupid and bland; you see things like that everywhere. You can't just buy things for the label - it's ridiculous."
Eva, Cavalli's striking young Austrian wife - his second, and the mother of three of his five children - appears, and I ask how it is that their marriage has survived nearly 30 years in showbusiness. "We met when she was only 17: she's an amazing woman and an amazing lover, and now she is an exceptional partner in the business."
His two adult children by his first wife - with whom he remains on good terms - however, are not being groomed to take over the business, Versace-style. "I don't think I'll hand it down to my kids because I like them to choose their own way in life."
As we pad over to the prow of the yacht to take some pictures, I ask whether there is any truth in last year's rumour that he intends to sell his empire in a £500 million deal. "Why would I?" he shrugs. "I don't need the money."
Then, pulling me into his perfumed chest and throwing out his arms out in the manner of Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, he bellows: "I'm the king of the world!"
telegraph.co.uk
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