Rosita Missoni, co-founder of Italian knitwear label, dies

Rosita Missoni, co-founder of the famous Italian clothing brand Missoni, has died at the age of 93.

The news was confirmed by the president of the Lombardy region in Italy, Attilio Fontana, who praised the brand’s “multicolored textures”.

He said his death is “a great loss for Italy, Lombardy and the province of Varese where he was born and lived”.

Rosita founded the luxury brand – known for its zig-zag motif – in northern Italy with her husband Ottavio in 1953.

Rosita, whose parents were shawl makers, was born in 1931 in the town of Golasecca, Lombardy.

While on a trip to study English in London, she met Ottavio – nicknamed Tai – when he was competing in the 400m hurdles at the 1948 Olympic Games.

At the time, Tai was creating his own knitted tracksuits, including zip-up bottoms so he could wear them as trainers.

“When I got married, four sewing machines arrived with my husband,” Rosita told AFP in an interview in 2016.

The couple, who married in 1953, first set up a mechanical engineering factory in Gallarate, northwest of Milan.

Their big break came in 1958 when a Milanese store ordered hundreds of striped Missoni dresses.

Missoni’s first catwalk show came in 1966, followed by a show at the Pitti Palace in Florence the following year.

The controversy surrounding the appearance of the clothes, after the models were asked to remove their white underwear because it was visible under the shirt, made the brand famous all over the world.

Tai died in 2013, aged 92.

The couple’s daughter, Angela, took over the fashion house in the late 1990s, although Rosita continued to work on the house line, Missoni Home.