Personalities
Italian fashion designer Ottavio Missoni passed away
Italian fashion designer Ottavio Missoni has passed away at the age of 92 on May 9, 2013
Missoni is a prominent Italian fashion design label existing since 60 years. He was born in 1921. In his young years he was very successful in sports and was an outstanding talent in 400 m sprint. 1948 he participated at the Olympic Games in London and met 16 year old student Rosita Jelmini, the daughter of a textile industrialist. He fell in love with her and married her in 1953 and the couple took residence in Gallarate. Rosita had from child on a very fascination for fashion and Missioni furnished a studio where both were experimenting with wool and quickly they developed their own and in the future characteristic Misssioni style with colourful fabrics and extraordinary geometric patterns, such as the zigzag stripes.
In 1960 their creations were firstly presented in Italian fashion magazines and in 1965 fashion doyenne Anna Piaggi Missoni discovered their work and accompanied them journalistically. 1996 the business went to the children of Rosita and Ottavio Missoni and they successfully tried to create a more modern and juvenile fashion label.
Last January an airplane disappeared at the coast of Venezuela, on board was Missoni’s son Vittorio (58) and his wife, and since then there was no sign of life of them.