“There is an artistic bent to what he does, and that's the difference -- the wonderful craft that's in his clothes. In a world where too many people were designing the same thing and almost every collection looks alike, Cavalli's prints are different, seductive.”

“He calls his stunningly overt, brazenly sexy craftsmanship ‘rock haute couture.' One can't walk in his lizard pants. One has to slither. Skirts are stamped with the gold-leaf embossing usually worked into opera curtains. Laser cutting transforms calfskin into lace, rhinestones miraculously suspended in each opening. And his jeans are unbelievable: shredded to reveal inner layers of brocade, inset with laser-cut lace birds. Nudists in Amish country couldn't attract more attention.”

“Roberto Cavalli took a don't-mess-with-a-good-thing approach to his Just Cavalli collection. His seventies-inflected signature show for Spring received rave reviews, so why not revisit the decade at his little-sister line for Fall? Of course, the labels have different target audiences—Just Cavalli's could be described as teenagers with trust funds—so the references were no longer esoteric, but obvious: Janis Joplin crossed with Mick Jagger at Altamont is a fitting description.”