For more than sixty years she colored the wardrobes and homes of millions with bright nuances, a mirror of her joie de vivre. Rosita Missoni, the founder, along with her husband Ottavio, and honorary president of the famous Italian fashion house based in Sumirago, a hillside establishment between woods and countryside with a special view of Mount Rosa, has died at 93. Rosita Jelmini was born in 1931 into a family of tailors in Golasecca (Varese, Italy) and met the sprinter as well as future husband at the 1948 London Olympics. The couple decided to join forces and skills in the world of textiles, a shawl and embroidery factory in the province of Varese owned by her family and a knitting workshop in Trieste owned by Ottavio. In the early 1950s they started a business in a shed in Gallarate and then moved all production to the city in the province of Varese. Together they worked for the Biki Boutique in Milan, and in 1958 they presented the small “Milano-Simpathy” collection at La Rinascente: colorful striped dresses first conquered the windows of the store in Piazza del Duomo. At the same time, attention to the label grew abroad, from Paris to the Big Apple, where, with the appreciation of the legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland, Missoni began to make inroads into the department stores, and closets, of Americans. The New York Times wrote, “If Chanel were alive and working in Italy, it would do exactly what Missoni does”. It was the beginning of success.