Interview with Home Fashion Icon Rosita Missoni
The launch of Missoni Home’s annual collection is always one of the most hotly anticipated highlights of the year. Launching four stories, Garden Light, Night Flower, Iconic FR and Constellation, the looks have been inspired by the elements and feature fresh, ethereal-like watercolours between soft neutrals.
The Matriarch of one of the most famous fashion dynasties in history, Rosita Missoni is a living legend. Starting the Missoni fashion line with her husband Ottavio, Missoni is now one of the most recognized and popular fashion brands in the world. The first Missoni Home collection was created in 1983, and now there are three generations of the family working across the business to keep the Missoni brand at the forefront of fashion and home style.
Rosita talks to us about the challenges of working with family and why luxury to her is a matter of time…
How would you describe your own home style and what’s your favourite room in your home and why?
My home is my nest: unconventionally stylish, cosy, comfortable, colourful, harmonious, happy, relaxing, and full of light. Besides my bedroom, which is my refuge, I would say the dining room because it is the core of the home. It is a kind of veranda with sliding door-windows overlooking the garden and we like to stay around the table also when the meal is over, and our guests seem to enjoy it too.
What does luxury mean to you?
For me, luxury is time to spend for myself, people and the things I like.
What do you think has been the driving force in Missoni Home’s success?
The strong identity of the brand is well reflected and interpreted in the home collection.
Missoni is renowned for being a family-run business. What are the best rewards from working with your family and what are the hardest challenges?
It is rewarding to have created a ‘style’ – the challenge is to keep it in the right track when it comes to shared duties and honours.
What is your most treasured possession and why?
My home (in which we have been living for more than 40 years) is the most treasured possession with garden and orchard but if you mean objects or pieces of furniture, the spacious coffee-table in our TV family sitting-room: a unique piece painted for fun by our two grand-daughters Margherita and Jennifer (at the age of 11 and 9) and saved by our son Luca (Jennifer’s father) with a resinated coating (Luca decided it was a unique piece of family naive art and needed to be protected).
Originally you started in the fashion side of the business before creating Missoni Home and focusing on homeware – do you miss working in fashion and how much do the two sides of the business differ?
No, I don’t miss working in fashion, it had become a duty no more a passion and I felt very relieved when Angela decided she was ready to take the reins of the Fashion collection. My fashion sense is of course reflected in the Home Collection. Fashion is ephemeral, and this is its great charm. Home is long-lasting like elegance.
What is the best advice anyone has ever given you?
When in 1965 we were looking for a place to build our factory, my husband Tai said, “We should find a place to work where we would like to spend our weekends”, and I totally agreed. Our choice was so right that once the factory was built we started to plan to also build our house. The best decision in our life.
Can you share with us your top three tips for styling your home?
Chairs around the dining table must be comfortable and easy to handle. In all my homes I use Hans Wegner‘s wishbone chairs, sometimes with the addition of a thin cushion, in this case using patterns or prints. I tend to use solids or tone on tone fabrics for sofas and big armchairs on which one can display pillows of different sizes even in macro patterns. Personally, I love the use of screens or circular rugs even in bold patterns to create backgrounds and corners.
Shop the extensive Missoni Home collection now.
