The Magnificent Seven say goodbye

On Wednesday evening in Milan, the catwalk bid farewell to the great Roberto Cavalli, five months after the death of Tuscany's most famous designer, culminated in an evocative show by his successor, Fausto Puglisi.

The show was the first the house of Cavalli has staged since its founder died in April. The event culminated with a group of supermodels called the Magnificent Seven taking a joint bow with Puglisi, who then gestured to the widow Eva Cavalli, seated next to Naomi Campbell, to join him on the catwalk and give him a standing ovation.

Catwalk stars such as Natasha Poly, Isabeli Fontana and Eva Herzigova wore vintage Roberto looks: loose chiffon dresses with zebra print or patterns with rooster feathers in expressionist tones.

“It was a very emotional moment and I was very grateful for Fausto’s gesture. Roberto’s role in fashion will go down in history. But I would like people to remember Roberto as a very creative but also sensitive man. A good father, a good husband, maybe not always, but we all have our weaknesses. But he was a very generous and good man,” said Eva.

Describing her late husband as a Tuscan cowboy, she said he was a quiet man, whom she urged to get out and into the world of rock'n'roll, where he created a huge audience for the brand.

Fausto's inspiration for this season came from his youth, when he witnessed the beauty of the Strait of Messina, his hometown in Sicily.

“Dreaming big,” Fausto said backstage, referring to his desire to create beauty and fantasy outside of his homeland while incorporating his culture into his fashion.

Although Roberto was very much a Tuscan, Fausto's Sicilian naturalness and sense of fantasy made him the ideal director for Cavalli. Both were also inspired by rock culture: Roberto with its clubs and cool cowboy elements, Fausto with his work in New York and the realization of his dreams in the West.

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Puglisi opened his show in white, ivory and ecru, with embroidery on trench coats, sparkling cocktails and loose trousers. Before suddenly changing clothes and evoking sea views at sunset in a whole series of photographs of the sun setting in the Mediterranean, with silk froissé dresses, fitted coats and skirts.

Before jumping into the sea like Poseidon, with wrinkled dresses and sequined cocktails that suggested the breaking of the waves, whose sound greeted the guests as they took their seats inside La Borsa, the former Milan stock exchange.

Everyone remembering the sights Fausto witnessed as a boy growing up in Messina. By a strange coincidence, on the same day as the death of Toto Schillaci, the famous Italian football star and top scorer at the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

A day and a show of its own, which also included a contemporary capsule collection of zebra-print garments, called 'Zebra 2000', composed of long and short slip dresses, shirt, T-shirt, bodysuit and two sets of jeans in three colour combinations. Available to buy immediately after the show.

The king is dead; long live the king.