Rosita Missoni on a life dedicated to fashion

The co-founder of iconic fashion brand Missoni took to the Design Indaba stage to talk about a life dedicated to fashion, the love that informed her work and the creative geniuses behind the world-renowned, internationally acclaimed company.
With a shared passion for design, Rosita Missoni and her husband Ottavio co-founded Missoni. Their business started as a small 100 square metre factory, which would grow into an internationally acclaimed fashion powerhouse. On the dynamic that led to their meteoric rise, Missoni jokes: “Ottavio was the creator, but I created him.”
Now in her eighties, Missoni recalls a moment in 1958, the night the couple received their first compliment for their creations: “We go down in the evening, my husband and me. We watched our very first window full of our clothes.”
She said the stylist who had arranged the display had placed a handkerchief around the eyes of the models. “A man comes by, and he stares at the window, and says: ‘God Bless that they’re blind because if they could see the way they looked!’
After a number of years dedicated to building the family brand, Missoni handed the reigns to her sons Vittorio and Luca, and to daughter Angela, devoting her talents to expanding the company’s home range.
“Now, my total devotion is for the home, and that keeps me alive,” she concludes.