“Roberto loved excess, but he never lost his point of view,” Nina Garcia, the editor in chief of Elle magazine, said in an email in 2020. “Even when minimalism was the norm, he believed in maximalism. He dressed us thinking that life — and fashion — should be lived at full speed.” Mr. Cavalli’s attention-grabbing, flesh-baring clothes were not for introverts. Nor was his brand intellectual. Rather, Mr. Cavalli played to fashion’s fun, flamboyant, hedonistic side. A Cavalli outfit commanded attention.
