ABSTRACT
The first collection by Ottavio and Rosita Missoni was produced for the Rinascente stores in 1953, but it was the Missoni label, introduced in 1958, which became internationally famous for imaginatively coloured knitwear. A workshop and factory were established in 1968 at Sumirago. The first boutiques were set up in Milan and New York in 1976, and the Missoni Uomo and Missoni Sport labels came into existence in 1981. Missoni achieved popular fame for its Spring 1967 collection in Florence, in which the models wore no underwear beneath their very fine knit dresses. Missoni’s subsequent association with Milan helped to establish that city as an international fashion centre, despite the company’s self-conscious dismissal of the fashion system. While modern technology remained central to the production of the Missoni knits, it was design, colour, imagination and, ultimately, practicality that sold them.
