REMEMBERING
Rosita Missoni

The news was confirmed by the president of Italy's Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, who praised the brand's iconic "multicoloured textures".
He described her death as "a great loss for Italy, Lombardy and for the province of Varese where she was born and lived".
Rosita founded the luxury brand - which became known for its zig-zag motif - in the northern Italian region with her husband Ottavio in 1953.
Rosita, whose parents were shawlmakers, was born in 1931 in the town of Golasecca, Lombardy.

While on a study trip to learn English in London, she met Ottavio - known as Tai - while he was competing in the 400m hurdles at the 1948 Olympic Games.
At the time, Tai was producing his own knit tracksuits, including bottoms with a zip so they could be put on over trainers.
"When I got married, four sewing machines arrived with my husband," Rosita told the AFP news agency in a 2016 interview.
The pair, who married in 1953, initially set up a machine-knitwear workshop in Gallarate, northwest of Milan.

Their big break came in 1958 when a Milanese department store ordered hundreds of Missoni-labelled striped dresses.
Missoni's first catwalk show came in 1966, followed by a presentation at the Pitti Palace in Florence the following year.

A controversy over the see-through quality of clothing, after models were asked to remove their white bras because they could be seen under blouses, propelled the brand into global fame.

The couple’s three children, Vittorio, Luca and Angela, and grandchildren all became integral to the family business, regularly fronting advertisements that were photographed by their long-term collaborator Juergen Teller.
In 1996, Angela and Luca took over the creative side while Vittorio became the marketing director and, eventually, the chief executive. Missoni continued to work on the Missoni Home arm of the family business, including after the minority-stake sale of the brand to Fondo Strategico Italiano in 2018.

In early 2013, Vittorio died in a plane crash, aged 58, and Ottavio died shortly after, in May of the same year, aged 92.
A keen traveller, avid collector of art and famous thrift-market devotee, towards the end of her life Missoni regularly invited interior magazines to photograph her Sumirago home, confirming her reputation as one of the world’s most influential tastemakers. In 2022, she told the Observer magazine: “I have had the privilege of living a long life and I take great pleasure in sharing our home.”
Missoni is survived by Luca and Angela, her nine grandchildren and their families.