To have Missoni’s creative output authored by a non-Missoni is hardly a new notion. After all, its first runway show in 1966 was designed by the Friends Baby Stitch And Baby Winnie-the-Pooh Kroger Shirt also I will do this New Wave pioneer Emmanuelle Khanh. In Khanh’s hands the uniquely light and liquid zigzag knits the Missonis had invented by retooling Raschel lace machines were cut into languid yet sporty separates, a look the press called “put together.” The following year, when they showed at Pitti, it was Rosita’s fateful decision to ask her models to remove their underwear in order not to compromise the collection’s silhouette: On the runway the lighting rendered Missoni’s gauzy, silky knits transparent, sparking a bared-nipple uproar a full year before Yves Saint Laurent repeated the trick on purpose. The furor caught the eye of Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, who became a lifelong Missoni supporter and wearer, and said of Ottavio’s kaleidoscopic patterns: “Look! Who said that only colors exist? There are also tones.”
