Missoni exhibition opens in London

May 6th sees the opening of "Missoni Art Colour" at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London. The exhibition, which was first shown at the MA*GA Art Museum in Gallarate, Italy, looks at how 20th century European art influenced Missoni founders Ottavio and Rosita Missoni.

The exhibition features more than 40 paintings by artists including Lucio Fontana and Sonia Delaunay, from both the MA*GA Museum and private collections in Italy, many of which have never been shown in the UK before. Missoni fans will be excited by the previously unseen textile studies, paintings and patchworks of knitted fabrics by Ottavio Missoni. Also on display are a selection of fashion looks from Missoni's archive, from 1953 to today.

"It was a struggle to select just 42 designs," Angela Missoni, the house's Creative Director since 1997, said at the press preview. Speaking of Missoni's heritage, she added: "My parents really invented a language - and I think I managed to update its vocabulary. I was never afraid to add new patterns or shapes."

The "Missoni Art Colour" exhibition was organized by the MA*GA Art Museum together with Missoni and The Woolmark Company, whose merino wool features in many of the garments on show.

And for Rosita Missoni, the company's original founder, showing Missoni's work in London is especially poignant, as the city is where she originally met Ottavio Missoni in 1948 when he was in the city for the London Olympics, she told press at the opening of the show. The result of that meeting would turn out to be an enduring legacy, not just for the Missoni family but for the fashion world.

Missoni Art Colour is at the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey, London, from May 6 - September 4.

Missoni exhibition opens in London

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