MILAN – Another Italian genius has left us. Italian designer Ottavio Missoni, founder with wife Rosita of the Missoni fashion house known worldwide for its trademark colorful knitwear, has died aged 92.
The label has remained an icon throughout the decades thanks to its unique style, which has always eschewed trends, and the dashing personality of the Missonis, notably Tai. “He was sunny like the colors in his designs”, said Milan Mayor Giuliano Pisapia.
Ottavio Missoni was born in 1921 in Ragusa.
He started out as a promising international athlete but his sporting career was interrupted when he was made a prisoner of war in World War II.
After the war, he resumed competing in 400 meters and 400m hurdles. He also started designing wool tracksuits that were worn by the Italian team at the 1948 Olympics in London.
He came in sixth at the 1948 Olympics and fourth at the European Championships in 1950 before marrying in 1953 his lifetime business partner Rosita Jelmini, the daughter of textile entrepreneurs from Lombardy.
The same year they founded their eponymous brand, Missoni, which has evolved through the decades while remaining immediately recognizable for its famous zig-zag patterns.
At first the couple worked from a small atelier in Gallarate, Milan. The big break came in 1958 when the Rinascente department store ordered the Missonis 500 striped dresses.
“We were trying to work with colors, but with the machinery we had back then it was hard”, Ottavio Missoni once told ANSA in an interview. So Tai and his wife researched new techniques to develop their unique patterns.
The duo in 1969 built their factory and home in Sumirago, near Varese, where the family still lives and works.
By the 1970s the Missonis were among the most prominent Italian fashion designers – their bold patterns, rich patchworks and unique color combinations a major success with unprecedented staying power.
During that era Tai would use his famous expression “put together” to describe to buyers from the booming US market the label’s singular and innovative combinations of different patterns and colors.
A number of international museums have honored with exhibits Missoni’s original and unique creations throughout the years including New York’s Metropolitan.
As an authentic Italian brand, the company was taken over during the 90’s by the Missoni’s three children – Vittorio, Angela and Luca – and more recently by a number of grandchildren.
“I’ve never done what was fashionable”, Ottavio Missoni told WWD in one of his last interviews. “I paint my own way”.
He once wrote, when he became an honorary citizen of Trieste in 2008, that his iconic zig-zag pattern was a symbol of life. “You see, that’s how life goes – with a zig-zag route”.
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