Roberto Cavalli Autumn/Winter 2018 interplays strength and fragility for women and men.

British designer Paul Surridge’s Autumn/Winter 2018 collection – his second for the Italian fashion house Roberto Cavalli - explores the interplay between men and women.

He explains in a recent interview before the catwalk show at Milan Fashion Week in February that the collection was inspired by Sharon Stone’s character, Catherine Tramell, in Basic Instinct, it is also a celebration of the timeless codes of Roberto Cavalli, featuring patterns borrowed from the animal world, including leopard prints and others derived from lynx, lizard and crocodile with furs and exotic skins.

While the silhouettes are emphatic, Surridge shows off his knack for tailoring with artfully cut jackets and coats and trousers for his and hers. 

Look for stretch wools, silks and clinging evening knit dresses with feather patterns in streamline silhouettes, contrasting with billowing chiffons, flirtatious drapes and transparent bouclé.

Denim becomes precious, keyed with embroidery or used as a palette for tailoring in fine wool or luxurious crocodile and python skins.

Other colours speak simultaneously of luxury and strength - violet, scarlet and graphic black.

With a strong focus on Italian artisanship, there are superlative working of leather, beading and embroideries and inspiration drawn from the ombréd surfaces of Murano glass, colouring chiffon dresses and tailored separates. An interplay between strength and fragility.

Menswear plays with the same codes - leathers, denims, animalier - but reinterpreted through a masculine idiom. Finely tailored overcoats combined with the sensuality of silky shirts and leather, atop a strongly-chiselled ankle-boot in polished leather or savage crocodile.

Information source and Images: Cavalli