The fashion industry would not look as it does today without a particular knitwear innovation — one that became the foundation of a global lifestyle house — and without the mind of Ottavio Missoni and his love of colourful geometric stripes and zigzags, the same instincts that inform bold striped blazer designs today.
Missoni was an athlete first. He joined the Italian national track team in 1937, at sixteen, and won the national championship four times. He served in the Italian army during the Second World War, fought at El Alamein in 1942, was captured, and spent four years in a British prisoner-of-war camp. What he did with those years matters: alongside his teammate Giorgio Oberweger he began designing athletic clothing, and after the war the two launched a small activewear business in Trieste making wool tracksuits they called Venjulia suits. The tracksuits used English ribbing, drop-stitching and zippered legs — a detail Missoni is credited with inventing — and they were worn by the Italian team at the 1948 Olympics in London.
He competed at those Games himself, reaching the final of the 400-metre hurdles. And it was in London that he met Rosita Jelmini, a sixteen-year-old student from Golasecca, watching from the stands at Wembley. Her family ran a shawl-making business. They married five years later, on 18 April 1953.
Ottavio was born in 1921 in Dubrovnik, on the Dalmatian coast — Ragusa, then. His mother, Teresa de’ Vidovich, was a Dalmatian countess; his father, Vittorio, a sea captain from Friuli. He was schooled in Zadar, Trieste and Milan. Everyone called him Tai.
The year they married, the Missonis set up a machine-knitwear workshop in Gallarate and called it Maglificio Jolly. What happened there is the whole story. Rosita’s family knowledge gave them access to knitting machines built for shawls and bedspreads, and their experiments revealed something nobody had bothered to try: cloth made on those machines, at clothing weight, came out surprisingly light. Rosita developed the shapes. Ottavio, who had the eye, took the colour. Each played to what they were good at, and the label followed.
The early garments went out unsigned — supplied to Biki, and later to La Rinascente in Milan. In 1958 the first pieces to carry the Missoni name appeared in that store’s window: a line of vertically striped shirtdresses in colour. Four years after that came the reconfigured Raschel machines and the flame-stitch technique, and with them the multicoloured zigzag that the house has never needed to explain since.
Luxury knitwear and velvet textiles owe a debt to what the Missonis proved in that workshop: that pattern and colour, handled with discipline, can carry a garment on their own.
Anna Piaggi found them. Then an editor at Arianna, she wrote about Missoni in 1965 and went on promoting the house across her whole career as a journalist, later writing their press releases. She said they had started a knitwear revolution, and she was right. The same year brought a collaboration with the French stylist Emmanuelle Khanh, shown in a swimming pool in Milan.
Their first catwalk show was in Milan in 1966. The following spring they were invited to the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, and the show became notorious: under the stage lights the lamé blouses turned transparent, the models were not wearing bras, and one offended columnist asked what the Missonis thought the Pitti was — the Crazy Horse? They were not invited back the next year. It hardly mattered. The scandal followed them to Milan and the press followed with it, which is part of how Milan became a fashion capital.
Diana Vreeland, then editing American Vogue, championed them in the United States. Her reaction to a Missoni collection has been quoted ever since: “Who said that only colours exist? There are also tones.”
The 1970s were the house’s decade. Bloomingdale’s opened an in-store Missoni boutique in New York at the start of it. Vogue gave the look its own name — the put-together look — and told readers to trust Missoni for a sweater they never knew they wanted. The knitwear was photographed by Henry Clarke, Helmut Newton, Deborah Turbeville and Richard Avedon. Lauren Bacall wore it, and Marcello Mastroianni, and Rudolf Nureyev. In November 1973 The New York Times wrote that Missoni’s knits had become as internationally coveted as Vuitton bags and Gucci shoes. The 1978 spring collection was accompanied by a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in New York, and that same year Missoni showed its first menswear.
By the 1980s, with the zigzag fixed permanently in the public eye, the house began to reinvent itself. The first Missoni fragrance arrived in 1982 and Missoni Home the year after. The pattern turned up on nearly everything — a crochet swimsuit, a scented candle, Fiat and Mazda interiors, costumes for La Scala. In 2009 the idea was taken as far as it goes, with the opening of the first Hotel Missoni in Edinburgh.
Ottavio put it better than anyone has since. “Colour?” he wrote. “What can I say? I like to compare colour to music: only seven notes, and yet endless songs have been written.”
The house remains a family business. Angela took over design in 1996; Luca and Vittorio ran the company. It has expanded rather than diluted — more than twenty-five lines, among them M Missoni, Missoni Home, Missoni menswear, the fragrances, and for a time Missoni Sport.
What Missoni settled, and what still holds, is that a man can wear pattern without apology if the pattern is any good. That principle runs through printed and floral blazers, through linen blazers cut for warm weather, and through patterned shorts — the Italian idea that colour is not a risk but a discipline.
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For more fashion inspiration visit PILAEO Magazine, or see the collection at PILAEO.
5 Defining Moments in Missoni's Italian Fashion Legacy
- Ottavio Missoni's Athletic BeginningsBefore founding the iconic fashion house, Ottavio Missoni was an Olympic-level athlete representing Italy, a background that instilled the discipline and precision later seen across his designs.
- The Signature Kaleidoscopic StripeMissoni pioneered the colorful geometrical zigzag and stripe patterns that became instantly recognizable, influencing luxury menswear pattern design for generations.
- Founding the Knitwear WorkshopTogether with his wife Rosita Jelmini, Ottavio launched a small knitwear workshop in the 1950s that would grow into a global luxury fashion house.
- Bridging Tradition and InnovationMissoni mastered the rare balance of honoring Italian textile heritage while pushing pattern, color, and silhouette into entirely new territory.
- Lasting Influence on Modern MenswearThe Missoni aesthetic continues to influence contemporary striped blazers, patterned knitwear, and bold color combinations across luxury menswear, including pieces in the PILAEO collection at pilaeo.com.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded the Missoni fashion house?
Ottavio Missoni and his wife Rosita Jelmini founded the Italian fashion house in the 1950s, beginning with a small knitwear workshop that grew into a globally recognized luxury brand.
What is Missoni famous for?
Missoni is internationally recognized for colorful geometrical kaleidoscopic stripes and zigzag patterns, particularly in knitwear. The signature combination of bold pattern with rich color has influenced luxury menswear, lifestyle goods, and even architecture.
Where was Ottavio Missoni originally from?
Ottavio Missoni was originally from Dubrovnik, in present-day Croatia (formerly part of Yugoslavia). His Mediterranean heritage influenced his approach to color and pattern throughout his fashion career.
What menswear styles are influenced by Missoni's heritage?
Missoni's legacy continues to influence striped blazers, geometric patterned menswear, kaleidoscopic knitwear, and bold pattern combinations across luxury menswear. The PILAEO striped blazer collection at pilaeo.com draws inspiration from this Italian luxury pattern tradition.
Where can I shop Italian-inspired luxury menswear?
Distinctive Italian-inspired pattern menswear is available at the PILAEO online house at pilaeo.com, including striped blazers, velvet pieces, and patterned designs that honor the heritage of Italian luxury knitwear and pattern design.
