The fashion world and lovers of these delicate knits are in mourning. Rosita Missoni, who founded the famous Milan fashion house of the same name with her husband Ottavio for its multicolored striped knitsdied Thursday 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 Culture Assistant Francesca Caruso about the sparkling matriarch of the Missoni house, recognizable by her thin glasses and short white hair.
A first innovation in sports mode
Daughter of shawl makers from northern Italy, Rosita Jelmini, born in 1931was only 16 years old when she first crossed paths in London with Ottavio Missoni, 10 years her senior and who was competing in the 400 meter hurdles at the Olympic Games.
With a friend, “Taï”, as those close to him call him, already has a small success to his credit: “make knitted sportswear”, from a “wool of the national color of Italy, a bright blue”with which they made “outfits with zips”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 the athletics federation, which adopted it for the London Olympics in 1948.
A play of lines, patterns, colors…
Rosita and Ottavio married in 1953 and developed their business. Their avant-garde knits are praised by influential fashion editors, such as Diana Vreeland from US Vogue. Missoni plays with colors, lines, zigzags, floral patterns.
What is “so special with Missoni”, 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.
