Italian fashion icon Rosita Missoni, co-founder of knitwear brand, dies at 93

Rosita Missoni, co-founder of the renowned Italian knitwear label Missoni, has passed away at the age of 93.

The news was confirmed by Attilio Fontana, President of Italy's Lombardy region, who honoured her legacy and praised the brand's distinctive "multicoloured textures." Fontana described her death as "a great loss for Italy, Lombardy, and the province of Varese, where she was born and lived," Caliber.Az reports via foreign media.

Rosita, along with her husband Ottavio, founded Missoni in 1953 in the northern Italian region of Lombardy. The brand quickly became known for its innovative designs, including the famous zig-zag motif that would come to define its signature style.

Born in 1931 in Golasecca, a town in Lombardy, Rosita's early life was shaped by her parents, who were skilled shawlmakers. While studying English in London, she met Ottavio – known as Tai – who was competing in the 400m hurdles at the 1948 Olympic Games. At the time, Tai was producing his own line of knit tracksuits, which featured bottoms designed with zips to easily slip over trainers.

Rosita recalled in a 2016 interview with AFP, "When I got married, four sewing machines arrived with my husband." In 1953, shortly after their marriage, the couple set up a machine-knitwear workshop in Gallarate, northwest of Milan.

Their breakthrough came in 1958 when a Milanese department store placed an order for hundreds of striped dresses bearing the Missoni label. The brand’s first catwalk show took place in 1966, followed by a presentation at Florence's Pitti Palace the following year. A memorable moment in the brand's rise to international fame occurred when a controversy surrounding the see-through quality of some of its designs led to models being asked to remove their white bras, inadvertently turning Missoni into a global sensation.

Tai Missoni passed away in 2013 at the age of 92. In the late 1990s, the couple’s daughter, Angela, took over the fashion house, though Rosita continued her involvement, focusing on the Missoni Home collection.

Missoni’s creative influence and the brand's global success, with its distinctive colour palettes and textures, remain a testament to the vision and innovation Rosita and Tai brought to the fashion world.

By Vugar Khalilov