With the arrival of the Missonis on the fashion scene, knitwear has never been the same. Everyone had to deal with this creative couple of entrepreneurs (Ottavio and Rosita) who revolutionized the sector forever by using imagination and colour.
After the war, Ottavio had put his athletic experience to good use by producing sports suits. Rosita Jelmini comes from a Lombard textile family, therefore good DNA and a mildly iron character. The two fell in love (she was a convict at the London Olympics in 1948) and they both discovered themselves to be very creative and good entrepreneurs. At the beginning of her career life, in 1953, they opened a laboratory in Gallarate, land of her family. Meanwhile, while the children arrived, they worked and worked. They were noticed when they presented the collection at a Milanese event and La Rinascente commissioned 500 striped dresses. But the imagination surpassed the characteristics of the machinery: the Missonis still couldn't do what they had in mind. They worked on it, like true craftsmen, renewed and improved production, created the technical possibilities of their unprecedented fashion. They were dresses but also caps, skirts and overcoats, flowing trousers and evening cardigans, all combined with innovative taste.
It was time to show off big: they first passed through the Pitti in Florence, which at the time was the catwalk of all made in Italy, but almost immediately they moved to Milan. What convinced them was an episode that would make them smile now but which at the time, it was 1967, caused a sensation. Rosita had decided to have the models take off their panties because, at the last moment, she had noticed that they marked the thin shirt of the tight dresses. But she hadn't realized that the lights of the fashion show would have created a transparency effect and the 'nude look' was criticized by the top management of Pitti. Thus it was that Tai and his wife took the opportunity to abandon Florence and go to show near home, in that Milan which was to become, also thanks to them, the heart of the new Italian pret-a-porter. They chose the modern Solari swimming pool and, in that unusual glass and water environment, they achieved great success that spread internationally. In the family they told about when Diana Vreeland, powerful director of Vogue USA, saw the collection and shouted: "But then color really exists!".
In 1969 the Missonis moved to Sumirago, still in the Varese area, factory and home next to each other, a work of modern architecture, bright, colorful and designed by the family. In this 'home and workshop' environment of true craftsmen, Tai and Rosita raised their three children, all of whom soon engaged in the company, and together they traveled the road to worldwide success which already fully arrived at the beginning of the 70s: tapestries colourful, patchwork and stripes, slub jacquards and the famous 'put together', an expression with which Ottavio explained to the Americans that it was a question of 'putting together' patterns of stitches and colors that no one would ever have dared to combine, in a kaleidoscope of motifs and colours.
The originality and recognition of this fashion without 'logo' they brought the Missonis to the most important department stores but also to museums around the world. Already in 1969 even the painter Balthus had defined Ottavio "master of color" thus emphasizing that artistic aspect that has always characterized the maison's knitwear. There are countless exhibitions dedicated to the art of Tai, Rosita and their special family: just to name a few, from the 1978 retrospective at the Whitney Museum in New York for the first 25 years of their career to that of Tokyo, from the 'Missonology ' della Permanente in Milan at the celebration of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London for the half century of activity.
When the founding couple, now full of awards, left the field to their three children, it was 1997. Angela soon took over the creativity of the brand; Vittorio, until his disappearance in the Venezuelan skies on 5 January last, held the administration of the group, Luca has increasingly dedicated himself to events and art. However, the parents had not retired, Ottavio continued to have his studio in the company and Rosita has always been intensely involved in the home sector.
Missoni spa, firmly in the hands of the family, had closed the 2011 balance sheet with a turnover of 70 million euros, but the turnover thanks to the licenses is much larger. Today the brand is not just knitwear even if this remains its banner: it is fashion in the complete sense of materials, from garments for men and women, first and second line, from accessories to swimwear, from sports fashion to children's fashion, from furniture to hotels, a true Italian lifestyle that continues to fascinate the world. At the heart of all this, the spirit of Ottavio, the sporty and gentle Dalmatian, elegant and ironic who in the 90s, when a reporter asked what fashion was for him, laughed and replied: 'breeches and majon'', in short, only trousers and shirt, after all…
