Milan:
Italian designer Rosita Missoni, co-founder of the fashion house of the same name known for her bright, patterned style, died Thursday at the age of 93, company officials announced.
She founded the brand with her husband, Ottavio Missoni, in 1953, and it became popular for its colorful knitwear featuring geometric patterns and stripes, including the signature zigzag motif known as fianmamato.
Born into a family of weavers near the northern Italian town of Varese, Rosita learned modern languages.
While visiting London in 1948 to improve his English, he met Ottavio, who was competing in the Italian Olympic 400m hurdles team there.
The Missoni brand has garnered international recognition and awards for its unique patterns and use of avant-garde textiles, as well as its approach to fashion, which is often compared to contemporary art.
It was also supported by the 1967 incident known as the “Battle of the Bra.”
Missoni had been invited to attend a show at Palazzo Pitti in Florence, but before the models could take to the runway, Rosita noticed that their bras were showing through their tops, ruining the effect of the intended color and pattern. I noticed that there was.
The incident caused a sensation when she instructed the models to remove their bras, but their costumes became completely transparent under the runway lights.
Although they were not invited back the following year, Missoni soon appeared on the covers of famous fashion magazines such as Vogue, Elle, and Marie Claire.
The layered design with its many overlapping patterns attracted the attention of the fashion world, which was moving away from high fashion, and became the standard-bearer for the so-called “wear all together” style.
When the company moved to Smilago, an Italian town north of Milan, the Missoni family took up a house next door, with most of the windows overlooking Rosita’s beloved Monte Rosa mountains.
Rosita served as creative director of the womenswear collection until the late 1990s, when she handed the role over to her daughter Angela.
The couple suffered tragedy in 2013 when their eldest son, Vittorio Missoni, who was the company’s marketing director, was killed in a plane crash off the coast of Venezuela.
Ottavio died at the age of 92 in May 2013, four months after his son’s plane went missing, but before the wreckage was discovered.
The brand has also expanded into home collections and hotels. In 2018, Italian investment fund FSI invested 70 million euros in the family-run company in exchange for a 41% stake, aiming to strengthen the brand overseas.
Missoni appointed Mr. Rothschild as a financial advisor in 2023 to explore the possibility of selling the family-owned company.
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