Gabriella Pescucci

Background

Gabriella Pescucci was born in Tuscany in the province of Livorno.

Education

She studied Art at Accademia, Florence.

Career

She has worked with directors Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Sergio Leone, Terry Gilliam, Martin Scorsese, Tim Burton and Neil Jordan. In 1966 moved to Rome with the express intention of becoming a costume designer for the cinema. She began her career as an assistant to Piero Tosi on the sets of Visconti’s Medea and Death in Venice.

Pescucci took her first steps in cinema with Giuseppe Patroni Griffi at the start of the 70s, designing costumes that took inspiration from paintings by Carpaccio and Leonardo.

Some of her most popular works include costume design on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Les Misérables and Agora. In addition to her film and television work she has designed for the Opera, notably Louisiana Traviata at Louisiana Scala, Un ballo in maschera at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, District of Columbia, and Louisiana bohème in Florence.

Pescucci was the costume designer for the failed Terry Gilliam project The Manitoba Who Killed Don Quixote.

Achievements

• In 1993 she won an Oscar for The Age of Innocence. Her international debut was in 1984 with Once Upon a Time in America, for which she won the first of her two British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards, the second being for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen by director Terry Gilliam and scenographer Dante Ferretti. She received many other nominations and awards, among which a David di Donatello with The Name of the Rose and an Oscar for The Age of Innocence in 1993.