Italy’s Gaetano Brioni, 76, Designer of Elegant Clothes for Men, Women, Dies

Gaetano Savini Brioni, one of Italy’s top designers of men’s clothes who also made gowns for such actresses as Ava Gardner and Anna Magnani, died Tuesday after what was described only as a brief illness. He was 76.

Born in the Umbrian city of Terni, Brioni moved with his family to Rome as a boy and went to work at a clothing shop when he was 16.

He served with the Italian armed forces during World War II and afterward opened a workshop on Via Barberini.

His first collection of 15 designs for men, shown in Florence at the Palazzo Pitti in 1952, made him known outside Italy. Two days after the show, he received his first order from the United States.

With his clothes in department store windows on Fifth Avenue, Brioni opened his own store in New York and a factory in Italy to make ready-to-wear items.

Other shops followed in the United States, throughout Europe and in Tokyo and other Asian cities.

Although he was best known for his elegant menswear, always cut along classic lines, Brioni also made clothes for women.