Milan Fashion Week: Peter Dundas menswear debut at Roberto Cavalli

It was always going to be an opulent affair, Peter Dundas debuting his menswear collection for Italian designer Roberto Cavalli.

Italian fashion houses are rotating their Creative Directors as much as in Paris, with Gucci, Pucci and Cavalli all appointing new designers in the past year. Whether it is a revival of sorts, a seismic shift or plain musical chairs we've come to expect from a complex, commercial-driven industry, it is always an exciting moment when a brand introduces the first collection by its new team.

Enter Roberto Cavalli, who last year appointed Peter Dundas to take over its design. The androgyny of the Gucci era seems to be very much present in current day Italy, and is certainly not a parent owned by the Florentine fashion house. At Cavalli, Dundas captured the current zeitgeist bang on from his first look, a skinny leopard coat worn over a fair-isle knit with flared trousers and Coverse All-Stars.

Cavalli is about freedom and not feeling restrained

"Cavalli is about freedom and not feeling restrained," Dundas told i-D magazine backstage, a nod perhaps to the androgyny that has revolutionised the Italian catwalks for the past two seasons.

"I think of humans as sensual and I think my Cavalli man has a sensuality as well, which means he can feel very comfortable wearing an embroidered jacket, but he does it with a pair of old flares," Dundas explained.

Before the show Dundas stated this collection is “what I want in clothes at the moment. Nothing in the collection was anything I could not imagine myself owning, or my friends or my lovers wearing. And it’s a start of what I hope you will consider the beginning of creating a Cavalli wardrobe and a Cavalli look. For me, I dissected in my mind every piece of clothing that I wanted and then how to give it relevance in my vernacular and the Cavalli vernacular, and how also to kind of position it today.”

While Dundas debut womenswear collection received mixed reviews in September, his menswear gained momentum and also more fans. Lest not forget, Mr Cavalli was a first-class entertainer, proving to be one of the most interesting and vivacious designers in a sea of creators who took themselves uber seriously. Time will tell if Dundas will be able to forge his own path once the umbilical cord has been cut.