Fernanda Gattinoni, 95; Dressed Actresses, Jackie Kennedy

Fernanda Gattinoni, 95, an Italian fashion designer who dressed such actresses as Audrey Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman, died Tuesday in a Rome hospital of unspecified causes. She was taken there Monday after becoming ill while working in her fashion house.

After learning her craft working for the Molineaux fashion house in London, Gattinoni declined an offer to work for Coco Chanel in Paris and returned to Italy, where she opened her own company in 1945. She was credited with reviving the high-waist, flared-silhouette Empire designs.

Over the years, her stylish but wearable clothes appealed to Italian nobility and such foreign style-setters as Argentina’s Eva Peron, Britain’s Princess Margaret, American First Lady Jackie Kennedy and U.S. Ambassador Clare Booth Luce.

Gattinoni came into her own in the 1950s, when Hollywood executives realized the value of having Italian designers dress their stars.

She created costumes for on- and off-camera wear by Gina Lollobrigida, Kim Novak, Angie Dickinson and Anna Magnani, as well as Bergman and Hepburn. She always said her favorite was Bergman, for whom she carefully made skirts wide enough to camouflage the actress’ large feet.

The designer was nominated for an Academy Award for her costuming of Hepburn in the 1956 epic “War and Peace.”

The designer liked to describe her creations as “elegant and sober.”

She disapproved of overly revealing gowns, always admonishing: “Nakedness is not stylish.”