Designer Roberto Cavalli dies at 83 after a long illness

The fashion world is in mourning. The designer Roberto Cavalliprecursor of animal print, died this Friday at his home in Florence at the age of 83, victim of a long illness. The Italian, who was married to the Swedish model Sandra Nilsson (38), leaves six children orphaned from three different marriages and a fortune that is close to 600 million dollars.

Born in Florence, into an aristocratic family, he trained at the local art institute and specialized in textile printing, creating a series of floral designs that caught the attention of important Italian hosiery shops. In the early 1970s, Cavalli invented and patented a revolutionary method of stamping leather and began creating patches from different materials. He presented his techniques in Paris and immediately began receiving commissions from such important houses as Hermès and Pierre Cardin. He presented his first collection at the Paris Ready-to-Wear Salon at age 30 and in 1972 opened his first boutique in Saint-Tropez, France.

He chained one success after another until he became one of the most respected designers in the sector and the favorite of the jet-set: he presented the first sand-worn jeans, opened stores in San Bartolomé and Venice and expanded his textile line to accessories with glasses, watches, perfumes, lingerie and swimsuits, among others, through RC Menswear and Just Cavalli. In 2002, Cavalli opened his first café-store in Florence, decorated with his distinctive animal prints. Shortly after, he opened the Just Cavalli café in Milan’s Torre Branca and then another boutique on Via della Spiga. Among his most important ‘milestones’ are the costumes for the Spice Girls’ return tour and the dress that Shakira wore at the closing of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.

In 2015, Cavalli sold 90% of the company and stepped away from the front line in the fashion world, although he continued to be active. Four years later, in 2019, the firm had passed into the hands of an investment fund, owned by an Emirati millionaire. In October of that same year, the designer was admitted to a hospital in Milan for two weeks, as he himself explained through his social networks. The couturier did not specify what his health problems were and assured that it was not something serious: “I feel fantastic, after two weeks in the hospital I feel like new. I send kisses to all my friends. I am happy to return home completely healthy,” he wrote on social networks.

He became a father in 2023

Roberto Cavalli not only enjoyed a prolific career but also an intense love life. Married in the 1960s to Silvanella Giannoni, he was the father of his first two children, Tomasso and Cristina. A decade later, he divorced and rebuilt his life with Eva Düringer. They said “I do” in 1980 and were parents of three: Robert, Rachele and Daniele.

In 2010 he began his relationship with the Swedish model Sandra Nilsson-Bergman, who gave him his last child last year. They called him Giorgio in homage to the designer’s father: “I did not have an easy childhood. My father was shot by the Germans in July 1944 in an assault on Castelnuovo dei Sabbioni. He was a surveyor, he worked in a mine in the Valdarno. I never returned to speak until I was 18. But life has been kind to me and I have been rewarded for everything,” he once said.

In 2015, Cavalli built his own paradise on a private Italian island, the Stora Rullingen islet, which he purchased for two million dollars. The villa has four bedrooms, a hunting lodge, a swimming pool, a golf course and the remains of an ancient Viking settlement. Here he loved to gather his children and his grandchildren in the summer.