Ottavio and Rosita Missoni now Angela Missoni

the designers

Ottavio and Rosita like to be called artisans because they developed their business by dreaming up colourful designs, mostly influenced by folk art. First they started with stripes, the easiest design which could be made with the ch. They use up to twenty different fabrics, including wool, cotton, linen, rayon and silk and some 40 different colours for each of their collections. Their clothes range from sweaters to skirts, dresses and jackets. Ottavio Missoni has also diversified from clothes to tapestries and carpets.

Today Missoni employs around 200 people at their Sumirago headquarters in the province of Varese. In spite of their rapid expansion and their growing international sales, the Missonis have kept their traditional ideas and maintained quality an important priority. Ottavio and Rosita have three children who have all joined the family busines. With advent of computer technology who knows what the younger Missoni generation has in store for the future...

the label

Aside from the main Missoni line, the company has diversified into a variety of luxury goods. Missoni Sport was initially licensed out but production and marketing was brought in-house in January 2002 and has since been discontinued. M Missoni is a less expensive line introduced in 1998, manufactured and distributed by Marzotto (now Valentino Fashion Group S.p.A). It has achieved remarkable success in being able to reach a larger number of consumers and is now being sold at premier department and specialty stores across the world.

The Missoni Home collection has its roots in furnishing fabrics produced in 1981 in collaboration with Rosita's family firm. They launched their first perfume in 1982, although that product has nothing to do with the license now held by Estée Lauder.

In November 2005, Missoni and the Rezidor Hotel Group signed an agreement to create Hotel Missoni, a lifestyle hotel chain. The first locations were announced in March 2006 in Kuwait, Edinburgh and Dubai. The first property, the Hotel Missoni Kuwait will open in a luxury mixed-use development on the seafront in the third quarter of 2008, with Edinburgh following later in the seconf quarter of 2009. Not much is known about the Dubai property, but it is expected to launch sometime in 2009 or 2010. Further properties are currently rumored for London (United Kingdom), Paris (France), Miami (United States of America) and Kiev (Ukraine).