And the cheap, gaudy pieces of furniture created in the early 1980's by radical Milanese design firms as an ironic comment on the modern movement have themselves become classics.

The Piano Concerto, which Busoni completed in 1904, is a gaudy, unapologetically over-the-top piece, stuffed with references to nineteenth-century Romantic styles.

It also turned the page on a new chapter in the history of sailing's oldest, gaudiest, most coveted piece of silverware.

Under the guidance of interior designer Otho, the Deetzes transform the house into a gaudy piece of pastel-toned modern art.

Mr. Antonioni was booed when he presented "L'Avventura" in 1960, and a gaudy piece of swag can provoke argumentative passion as surely as a jury's vote or an auteur's vision.

I could throw out the hundreds of troublesome house-plants that were so much work, could put some of those gaudy ceramic pieces in the attic, but I did none of this.

'Is that gaudy piece of junk your boat?'

The heist itself is a gaudy piece of theatrical bravura - but it isn't the whole story.

Earlier musical comedy had often been thinly plotted, gaudy pieces, marked by the insertion of songs into their scores with little regard to the plot.

Stripping away the wrapper from the stick of Captain Laser Astrogum he thrust the gaudy piece of synthetic sweetmeat into his mouth.