Is layering without z-index possible?

Hi,

I’ve got to create an email signature for an annoying client that wants to overly complicate the job for me :fight: (don’t you hate that). They need a curved border around an email signature which has 9 (yes thats right 9) logos in it. Now I went along and set up my nice little CSS signature and realised that there is a boatload of exceptions and rules you have to follow to get things looking right across local and internet based web clients (yay as usual). I’ve hit a wall with gmail as it doesn’t recognise the z-index property, so how am I supposed to create a layered look with the border graphic in the background and all the other stuff on top? Is there anyway to layer divs without using the z-index property? Any help would be much appreciated!