Missoni – It’s more than just fashion

It takes passion galore to create fashion. The same passion that keeps you on your toes in a job like this.

Ottavio, the creative mastermind, and Rosita Missoni, the driving force behind it all, lived and worked together for sixty years. The two were able to forge a perfect blend – wonderful family, extraordinary company. Today, Missoni is still a symbol of CRAFTSMANSHIP and AVANT-GARDE style.

The Missoni story had its start in the 1950s, when, as a kind of game, Ottavio and Rosita began making sweaters for Maria Callas’s costume designer. In 1958 their first order for 500 knit dresses put them in Milan’s Rinascente show window with a gang of blindfolded mannequins. Missoni took off. And kept going. Today, stronger than ever.

Missoni attained international success in the 1970s with its splendid knitwear, at a magic time for prêt-à-porter. Paris runways spotlighted Yves Saint Laurent and Sonia Rykiel. Not to mention Missoni of Italy.

That’s when “Tai” and Rosita met up-and-coming stylist Emmanuelle Khanh. The four collections they did together are considered the Missoni break point, thanks to a new burst of stylistic energy. It was the codification of Missoni’s style, a hallmark to this day. CLASSIC. NONNEGOTIABLE. RELIABLE. NEVER BORING.

In 1970 the Missoni style was so mimicked that Neiman Marcus barred its buyers from buying brands that churned out copies.

No other fashion house ever did what Missoni did to sweaters. Missoni knitwear has become even lighter over the years. Today, knitwear nearly as light as chiffon.

It all begins with the yarn, which is there even before the design. The yarn is the starting point, from which everything else is born.

After the yarn comes the color.

More than a stylist, Ottavio Missoni was an artist who transformed raw material, which Rosita turned into fashion. He himself said he could never have done it without her, and that over the years the driving force behind everything Missoni was always Rosita.

Missoni fashion expresses an ancestral quality that approaches the archetypal. Because the elements it works with, FORM and COLOR, are part of every culture.

Yarn is the raw material from which the entire process starts. Color is the lifeblood. We might say that Missoni style is the only existing form of art that has been transformed into clothing.
An art made of chromatic freedom and inventiveness as expressed through the comfort of the sweater – which is the world’s most comfortable garment.

The Missoni world has strong ties to art. Missoni creations are works of art. Missoni also derives nourishment from the creations of other artists.

Missoni is much more than simply fashion. Missoni is RADICAL and REVOLUTIONARY while maintaining the highest standards of craftsmanship.

Angela Missoni succeeded in expressing her own personal experiences through her work as a stylist – the mark of a pro. She was able to balance out past, present and future. This was the challenge that awaited her when she was named creative director of the brand in 1997. She thoroughly resurrected the Missoni essence. She brought put-together to the present, and reached out to younger consumers while safeguarding Missoni’s trademark commitment to craftsmanship.

Demanding, precise, ever striving for more, Angela grew up in the company founded by her parents. Early on, she and her siblings would learn the importance of teamwork and harmony within the group. She learned how fashion, given the historical context, thirsted for storytelling. And understood the huge potential of Missoni, and the history of its extraordinary family that is the essence of a truly great company.

Over the years, Angela has worked with numerous artists. There was the filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino. She immediately grasped the power of Oliviero Toscani’s idea of using the Missoni family in an ad campaign – a family reunion to tell the world what the true essence behind the brand was, is and will be. In 2010 she met photographer Juergen Teller. He depicted the three Missoni generations, with a special focus on Angela’s daughter, Margherita – who became Missoni’s “face”.

Angela is a collector, although she refers to herself as a hoarder. She possesses an innate sense of taste. Thanks to which she turned Missoni into a brand that talks about what’s going on around you. After all, it would be impossible to create and manage a company like this without a passion for so many of the great things that life has to offer.

The magic of Missoni esthetics: Always the same, always completely different.

Missoni’s strength within the fashion system: It’s immediately recognizable. When you look at Missoni today, you see PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE. Missoni’s sun never set, and it never will.

Missoni is timeless fashion.

“To dress in bad taste, you don’t have to follow fashion... but it helps.”(Ottavio Missoni, in an interview after hitting it big in New York, 1970s.)

Look the video: https://vimeo.com/296371466