"I didn't sleep much last night because I was too busy thinking about this," he told us ahead of the talk, his second at the university. "I feel like a human being. I don't have emotions any more, I am so busy running around. Tonight I do."
Cavalli - who recently released a candid account of his life in a new memoir - rose to fashion superstardom despite difficult circumstances. He grew up, as he describes, on "the streets of Florence". His father died when he was two, leaving his mother to bring up him and his sister. He was never keen on school and admits that he probably wouldn't have been well-suited to an institution like Oxford.
"Student life was horrible," he says. "I was a difficult child. I didn't really study anything, I learnt to read and write, but my biggest problem was my stutter. I used to tell my mummy, 'Why should I learn when I can't even repeat what I know?' She'd cry and say, 'What a disaster of my life.'"
However, Cavalli went on to study at the Royal Academy of Arts where he "learnt to be good" and carved a niche for himself by printing on leather - something he practised to impress a pretty blonde he knew at the time, but a skill that was new in fashion. He is now known for his glamorous lifestyle (he has his own private jet, super-yacht and an aquarium), as much as he is for his collections.
"All I wanted was to own a little car," he said. "One of the best days of my life was when I bought a blue Fiat 500. I don't remember when I bought my first Ferrari, but I do remember that Fiat."
After having arrived at the Oxford Union in the manner of an actor collecting an Oscar, with kisses blown to students, the designer - complete with enthusiastic gesticulations and dramatic pauses - shared his thoughts on his proudest moments (inventing stretch denim in the Nineties); his muses (his wife, Eva); high-street copies ("It used to make me angry, but they do it because I'm successful"); his favourite trips abroad (the South Pole - "It was cold, but worth it"); his new creative director, Yvan Mispelaere ("I am the orchestra director, I tell them what music to play"); and his love of animal prints.
"I love nature," he said. "And animals have the best dresses. God made them so well-dressed. Women like these designs, they feel natural in them."
The label has an impressive string of star fans, from Rita Ora to Victoria Beckham, but Cavalli believes that dressing celebrities can be problematic.
"It's not fair," he said. "Big companies pay stars to wear on the red carpet. Young designers can't do that, so they will never have the same success. There is also so much advertising today, I don't like it. I don't like to suggest what a woman should wear - I want her to choose my clothes without any suggestion."
And, as far as compromising his signature exotic glamour for fashion's current love of easy, pared-down chic, he was quite firm: "I like fashion that is different, minimalism is boring. I am a mountain in the minimalism. Fashion that is not crazy is not fashion. And what is not fashion is American."
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