Roberto Cavalli, early 1970s.
Navy hand-painted and printed suede shirtdress. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds this design in its Costume Institute.
Cavalli was a painter before he was a designer. This dress carries both of his founding techniques at once: imagery printed onto suede by the method he patented, and stems and grasses painted directly onto the hide by hand.
The Piece
Midnight navy suede, cut as a shirtdress. An exaggerated pointed collar. A western yoke, front and back, with a serpentine seam. Collar, yoke and cuffs are edged in a narrow band of suede printed with a fine ivory floral vine.
Dogwood blossoms in blush, coral and ivory, with metallic centers and sage leaves, are printed onto suede and set into the bodice, the collar points, the back yoke and the deep turn-back cuffs. A trailing spray crosses the curved drop-waist seam. Below it, painted stems rise across the skirt into further blossoms, front and back.
The half placket ends in a rounded tab and closes with navy enamel flower snaps with copper centers, the signature hardware of the period. The skirt flares gently to a curved hem with rounded side vents. Every edge and appliqué is finished in contrast zigzag stitching.
In the Met
The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds this design: Roberto Cavalli, Ensemble, ca. 1971 (2007.171.3a, b), gift of Pamela Barry Matalon, 2007.
The Provenance
From the wardrobe of Fran Ornstein, whose mother was president of Crissa, the label Cavalli designed for during his founding period. She acquired the dress on release and kept it for more than fifty years.
Part of Cavalli's lost first chapter: the founding-period work his later fame obscured, rediscovered in a single wardrobe and documented in Roberto Cavalli: The Painted Years.
In Vogue
The Painted Years was featured in Vogue, September 2026, by senior archives editor Laird Borrelli-Persson, who described the collection as "poster-like art on animal skin."
Read the Vogue feature
The Designer
Cavalli's patented leather printing drew commissions from Hermès and Pierre Cardin. His 1971 Patchwork collection was shown in the Sala Bianca of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence in 1972. Couture audiences dismissed it at first. Then photographs of Brigitte Bardot in a Cavalli printed jacket in Saint-Tropez made his work a fixture of fashionable European wardrobes.
The animal prints and red carpets of 1990s Cavalli became so dominant that this first chapter largely disappeared from public memory. No other 1970s Roberto Cavalli clothing is currently offered on 1stDibs.
Also in Museum Collections
Condition
Good vintage condition, with signs of age honest to a piece that was worn and kept. There is tonal variation in the suede nap throughout and light surface marks at the collar. Both are disclosed in photographs.
Care: suede specialist cleaning only.
Measurements
Available upon request.
