Rosita Missoni, Italian fashion house matriarch, dies at age 93

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, died Thursday, a company official said. She was 93.

Missoni SpA confirmed the death and planned a statement along with the family later, said Alberto Gualeni, an international spokesperson for the company in Milan.

Local officials offered condolences 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 the company celebrated its 60th anniversary, the family endured a double tragedy. The eldest Missoni son and the company’s CEO, Vittorio Missoni, died when a plane carrying him and five others disappeared off Venezuela. It took six months to locate the plane wreckage in the seas off the South American country, during which time patriarch Ottavio Missoni died, aged 92.

In 2018, the family sold a 41.2%-stake to the Italian investment fund FSI, but maintained majority control of the house.

In 2021, the youngest daughter, Angela Missoni, stepped down as creative director after 24 years.

There was no immediate word on funeral arrangements.