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"  Frida Giannini, creative director at Gucci and maker of all things smoldering and sexy, wouldn&amp;#039;t be caught dead showing her bare midriff. That&amp;#039;s fine for Gucci&amp;#039;s corporally adventurous clientele, should they be so inclined, but not for this 36-year-old designer. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re never going to see this part of my body exposed,&amp;quot; she says, motioning vigorously to the forbidden midsection while at home in her striking new city retreat in Florence. The Gucci runway has always been a prude-free zone, but who says the smoke wafting from the models&amp;#039; spike heels has to perfectly correspond to its maker&amp;#039;s own wardrobe, itself a steady flow of basic blacks, practical pants, and sharp men&amp;#039;s-style shirts, with no skirts?  SEE LOOKBOOK:  FRIDA GIANNINI &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s like saying Valentino always needs to wear red,&amp;quot; says the Roman-born designer as she surveys the high-end lineup in one of her dark glass-lined closets. But the fact that Giannini beat out two other designers to take the reins at Gucci proves she&amp;#039;s not lacking for brains or talent. &amp;quot;Even if I feel terrible wearing something supertight,&amp;quot; she allows, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve got to cover the other half of the world&amp;#039;s female population, which really wants to look sexy [in my designs].&amp;quot; Truthfully, the sex quotient at the luxury powerhouse has been taken down a notch since Giannini&amp;#039;s ascension - and rightly so, given today&amp;#039;s more moderate mood. The bright flowers and bold prints she employs reflect a lighter, softer touch that won&amp;#039;t be going away anytime soon. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s absolutely my vision for Gucci,&amp;quot; she says. For the source of the brand&amp;#039;s feminine recalibration, search no further than the designer herself. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a ponytail girl,&amp;quot; she assesses. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s how I see myself.&amp;quot; For evening, Giannini prefers a romantic look, like the sweet floral and printed dresses that dotted Gucci&amp;#039;s spring runway and that have now become something of a signature for her. For day, it&amp;#039;s no-nonsense loose dresses worn with turtlenecks or the low-slung, skinny Frida trouser worn with shirts and cuff links and one of her many vintage watches. The origin of Giannini&amp;#039;s practical personal style owes much to her job function, which precludes extraneous frills and flounces. &amp;quot;When I&amp;#039;m down on the ground laying out designs, in the middle of a mess, it&amp;#039;s pretty useless if I show up in crepe de chine,&amp;quot; she says.  A top job usually means a new I-am-the-decider look, even for Giannini, who admits to adopting a few style tweaks of her own. She now rarely wears other designers&amp;#039; merch, even if her closet does boast vintage Balenciaga and Helmut Lang. &amp;quot;It doesn&amp;#039;t really seem right,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It would seem as if I didn&amp;#039;t believe in what I was doing.&amp;quot; Once, she ventured into the outer orbit of cheap fashion, donning a red-and-black-printed dress from H&amp;amp;amp;M. &amp;quot;My colleagues gave me so much grief when I wore it to the office,&amp;quot; she recalls. &amp;quot;I was so mortified that I gave it to a girlfriend.&amp;quot; She does, however, indulge in one naughty little habit. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a maniac for French shoemakers,&amp;quot; she says with a smile, pointing out the Louboutins and Hardys peeking out from between the rows of Gucci riding boots and heels.  But her Converse All Stars, her old preferred footwear, have completely vanished (replaced by Gucci stilettos, natch), and she&amp;#039;s become something of a stickler for the antislacker look. &amp;quot;If one of my design kids comes in wearing Birkenstocks, I tell them to go home and put on a pair of suede loafers,&amp;quot; she says with impatience. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re working for one of the most important luxury brands in the world. There should be a minimum amount of decorum and respect.&amp;quot;  If Giannini is toughening up, it&amp;#039;s only natural, given the immense amount of pressure on her thin shoulders to constantly outperform Gucci&amp;#039;s already stratospheric sales figures. Back in 2004, she was already living her dream by overseeing Gucci&amp;#039;s whopping accessories department. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s something that happened to me,&amp;quot; she says of nabbing the all-encompassing creative-director job, which first passed from Tom Ford to Alessandra Facchinetti for womenswear and John Ray for menswear and then, in rather quick succession, all landed with a thud in Giannini&amp;#039;s lap. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not something I sought out.&amp;quot; Now she&amp;#039;s living with the consequences, as fulfilling as they are challenging, of having said yes.  &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t do anything else,&amp;quot; she says matter-of-factly of her work-only lifestyle. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t have a social life. It&amp;#039;s not healthy. I have stomach problems, back problems.&amp;quot; She married Italian Web designer Giovanni Battista Guidi in 2005 and is currently mulling the possibility of having children. Her husband wants to, but she&amp;#039;s not sure yet. &amp;quot;All of my oldest friends - even the weirdest and most antiestablishment ones - have had kids, and my mom&amp;#039;s like, &amp;#039;Just do it!&amp;#039;&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;But sometimes I think, how on earth could I manage that?&amp;quot; She has, however, made enormous inroads in setting up house. Her sprawling three-bedroom home, tucked into the green hills overlooking Florence, took a year to restructure under the watchful eye of her architect father. &amp;quot;We fought about everything,&amp;quot; she says, laughing. The interiors have been decorated by Giannini herself, who sourced her &amp;#039;30s and &amp;#039;40s art-deco pieces from dealers in Paris, Florence, and Rome.  The house has an indoor pool (&amp;quot;I hardly ever use it,&amp;quot; she laments) and a music room with 7,000-plus records (a gift from a DJ uncle), but these domestic conceits belie Giannini&amp;#039;s normality. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s about finding a good internal balance and having good values,&amp;quot; says the designer of staying grounded, &amp;quot;and not saying stuff like &amp;#039;I want a private jet because I&amp;#039;m creative director at Gucci.&amp;#039; That just makes me laugh.&amp;quot; Initial talk of her having a bodyguard was also scoffed at. &amp;quot;I fought like mad not to have one,&amp;quot; she says, again trumping expectations. &amp;quot;I would&amp;#039;ve felt ridiculous. Can you imagine?&amp;quot; she ponders, swirling her glass of white wine. &amp;quot;Me and my bodyguard?&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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