Gucci performs, Cavalli paints for womenswear

By Jo Winterbottom

MILAN (Reuters) - Gucci's Frida Giannini thinks of her outfits as a performance, while Roberto Cavalli says his are like paintings, the designers told Reuters on Wednesday.

Giannini, whose womenswear show for winter 2008-09 put military overtones on a bohemian, hippy look, said she was inspired by the style of east European émigrés to Paris and Vienna in the 1920s.

"They mixed, and they created something very new, something very theatrical," she told Reuters after the show.

Her outfits mixed brass buttons and belts with soft chiffon and velvet, with ample amounts of jewelry and ornament.

"I really like the idea of a performance ... each single look has the feeling of a performance because I used more than 10 prints, I used more than 20 different patterns," she said.

Models at the show wore tight black trousers tucked into high leather boots that covered the knee with hipster belts in brass chainlink or studded leather.

A rich, velvet patchwork of burgundy, black and jade was fine pleated into a short skirt that swung very much to a Russian tune.

Evening wear was long and liquid in patterned silk with belts whose tasseled ends were weighted with jewel-encrusted spheres. Flowing necklines were anchored in gold mayoral vees.