Dressing well in the Victorian era was a dangerous business. What with arsenic-dyed green silks, mercury-dipped beaver hats and rib-crushing corsets, becoming a fashion victim involved real personal risk. Despite its lethal heritage, or perhaps because of it, fashion designers have long sought to evoke the period’s macabre romanticism. This silk and beaded-lace gown from Roberto Cavalli’s Fall 2006 collection channels that haunting elegance, blending historical allure with modern sensuality.
Full of drama and delicacy, the dress cuts a ravishing figure. Its sweeping silk is printed with lush chinoiserie-inspired scenes, which Cavalli used liberally in this collection. Gilded birds and floral branches stretch across the surface, and fan-shaped panels of beaded black lace adorn the torso. These mirror embellishments deployed during the Victorian era, the origin as well of the dress’s high-necked, long-sleeved silhouette. The spread of industrialization during the period introduced new dangers into everyday life (like being poisoned by your clothes), and the public was fascinated with gothic romanticism. It’s a genre that fuses beauty with chilling severity, a dichotomy evidenced in the subversive details of this gown.
The gown fits the body tightly from the bodice down its entire length, hugging the hips rather than expanding into a traditional bustle. Instead, it flares gracefully at the knee, pooling on the floor with added volume from lace godets built into the skirt. The lacework, which may have been a historical nod, is unlined, creating a tantalizing veil over the décolletage and torso. But all pretense goes out the window with the gown’s dramatic open back, accented by the collar’s covered buttons and another (very low) lace panel for good measure. The high collar and long sleeves that defined Victorian dressing conveyed modesty, but that is not a virtue Roberto Cavalli was known for.
“He was a master of theatrical glamour,” says Brittany Hughes, of Fallyn Delaney, which is offering the gown on 1stDibs. “This dress is sleek but daring, perfectly highlighting Cavalli’s bold approach to evening wear.” In the early 2000s, that boldness attracted fans like Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez. Victoria Beckham deemed this exact design “posh” enough to wear to the 2006 Bambi Awards in Germany. Cavalli died in April 2024, and his garments are now coveted by such archival collectors as Bella Hadid, Zendaya and the Kardashian-Jenner clan.
Complex and layered, this gown is a quintessential Cavalli showstopper. In another life, it might have swept through the halls of a gothic castle or delivered a shock to the British aristocracy. With the dark age it references now long gone, the exquisite tension and severe glamour it embodies desperately call for it to come into the light once again.
