ROME — Rosita Missoni, the matriarch of the iconic Italian fashion house that made colorful zigzag-patterned knitwear high fashion and helped launch Italian ready-to-wear, has died. She was 93. Missoni died peacefully on Wednesday, Missoni SpA and the Missoni family said in a joint statement.
Local officials offered condolences on Thursday and recalled Missoni’s ties to the small northern city of Gallarate where the Missoni brand was born in an artisan’s shop in 1953. Born Rosita Jelmini, Missoni grew up in a family that owned a textile factory that produced shawls. When she met and married Ottavio Missoni, they founded their eponymous fashion house in Gallarate that would turn into a fashion dynasty, with the couple’s three children and their offspring involved in expanding the brand.
The Missonis got their first break in 1958, when the Rinascente department store commissioned 500 colorful vertically striped shirt dresses — the first to carry the Missoni label. The Missonis first showed their collection in Milan in 1966 and the brand helped turn the city into a fashion mecca. Their signature fashions, with the trademark graphic zigzags, long had a reputation for wearability and for surviving many seasons of changing trends.
Family members were often the brand’s best models, wearing Missoni graphic creations in everyday life. The founders turned over the business to their children in 1997, though Rosita remained involved in the Missoni home collection. In 2013, as.
