Ciara Is Roberto Cavalli's Latest Muse, Gorgeous as Ever

Twitter went wild over Rihanna’s stunning Dior spot, and the fact that she was the storied French fashion house’s first black woman spokesmodel. Now, we’re guaranteed to see at least one more black pop star in the fall/winter advert cycle: Ciara is the new face of Roberto Cavalli, another revered European design house with the power to establish icons out of its models.

Cavalli has turned to pop stars in the past, and unlike Dior, Ciara’s not the first black model he’s chosen for a campaign. Nicki Minaj is currently repping the line’s Spring/Summer 2015 campaign. (Previously, the brand has cast Rita Ora among a melange of supermodels like Gisele Bundchen and Georgia May Jagger.)

The photographs were shot by Francesco Carrozzini in Los Angeles and, according to a very funnily florid press release, “capture the seductive energy of a woman ready to build her very own kingdom beyond mere dreams, taking the beauty to the throne of personality.”

Ciara taking her beauty to the throne of personality

The press release continues:

The story of a world encapsulated in one room. A surreal kingdom where the walls look like a magical sky and surfaces enchant with desert volumes and earthy hues.

The star of the evocative Roberto Cavalli Fall/Winter 2015-16 advertising campaign is Ciara, the American hip hop artist, who embodies beauty with a hint of wildness.

The Maison’s tailoring workmanship enhances the printed silks, which evaporate from black into the colours of a dreamlike world, until they capture the warmth of a starry night with the brilliance of elegant solid colours.

God, I love fashion press copy like this! Full of self-serious adjectives that don’t carry a ton of meaning but evoke a certain atmosphere, like the whiff of perfume spritzed upon your person by an elegant shopgirl at the entrance of Macy’s. Enchant. Anyway, here are all the images from that campaign, with Ciara looking like a beautiful wild tiger. She may be a cipher at times, but we really recognize her legend when we get her in her dancing or modeling context.