Rosita Missoni, matriarch of Italian fashion house famous for zigzag knitwear, dead at 93

Rosita Missoni, the matriarch of the iconic Italian fashion house that made colourful zigzag-patterned knitwear high fashion and helped launch Italian ready-to-wear, has died. She was 93.

A Missoni statement said Rosita “passed away peacefully on January 1, 2025”, calling her “a visionary figure in the Italian and international fashion world”.

Local officials offered condolences on Thursday and recalled Missoni’s ties to the small northern Italian 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 colourful vertically striped shirt dresses – the first to carry the Missoni label.