Just as Cannes has its effortlessly chic French girls, Venice Film Festival has always been the undisputed domain of the Italian bombshell. Since the showcase’s inception nine decades ago, these impossibly glamorous women have shimmied off their private water taxis and onto the Lido in showstopping ball gowns, with dramatic cat eyes and lashings of mascara, their hair teased up to perfection and eye-wateringly expensive jewels draped around their necks. Among them were Fellini heroines like Claudia Cardinale; Michelangelo Antonioni’s bewitching muse Monica Vitti; the always elegant Sophia Loren; and Monica Bellucci, still the very definition of va-va-voom style.

As we count down to the event’s 83rd edition, we look back at their most dazzling moments from festivals past.