She founded the Milanese fashion house Missoni with her husband Ottavio, famous for its multi-colored striped knitwear: Rosita Missoni died Thursday January 2 at the age of 93, announced the president of the Lombardy region Attilio Fontana.
“We are losing an extraordinary figure, an icon of style and creativity who knew how to bring Lombard excellence and the value of Italian craftsmanship throughout the world.“, reacted her assistant for Culture Francesca Caruso about the sparkling matriarch of the Missoni house, recognizable by her thin glasses and her short white hair.
Daughter of shawl makers from northern Italy, Rosita Jelmini, born in 1931, was only 16 years old when she first crossed paths in London with Ottavio Missoni, ten years her senior and who was competing for the 400 meter hurdles at the Olympic Games. With a friend, “Taï”, as those close to him call him, already has a little success under his belt: “make knitted sportswear“, from a “wool in the national color of Italy, a bright blue“, with which they made “outfits with zippers“, Rosita told in 2016 in an interview with AFP.
The innovation, which allows you to put on your pants without having to take off your sneakers, attracted several Italian federations, including that of athletics, who adopted it for the London Olympics in 1948. Rosita and Ottavio married in 1953 and developed their business . Their avant-garde knits are praised by influential fashion editors, such as Diana Vreeland of Vogue US. Missoni plays with colors, lines, zigzags, floral patterns.
What is “so special with Missoni“is that it’s a style”immediately recognizable” et “timeless“All their clothes.”are as vintage as they are contemporary“, according to fashion expert Gianluca Longo interviewed by AFP.
The inseparable couple finds their inspiration in “contemporary art: from Sonia Delaunay, whose use of colors Rosita appreciates, to the Italian futurist Gino Severini“, Celia Joicey, director of the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, explained to AFP at the time of an exhibition on Missoni in 2016, three years after Ottavio’s death.
In 1997, Rosita handed over the reins of the house to her daughter Angela, and devoted herself to the interior decoration line, Missoni Home, drawing from archives or collections to create sofas, chairs or interior fabrics.
