... En plena resaca del avance de Matthew Williamson para H&M ( que por cierto, prometo que la colección popular que llegará a las tiendas el 14 de mayo va a arrasar!!) acabo de leer en mis blogs de referencia que a Ángela Missoni le encantaría crear una colleción para H&M..y ésto me huele a que lo hará....BIEEEENN!!
Ésto es lo que contó a la prensa con motivo de la inauguración de su nueva tienda en UK....
Why I want to kill off the catwalk
As Angela Missoni opens her first boutique in Britain, she tells Celia Walden how she intends to modernise fashion.
By Celia WaldenLast Updated: 5:34PM BST 21 Apr 2009
A head for brights: (left to right) Missoni spring/summer 2009; spring/summer 2009; autumn/winter 2010
Angela Missoni quit smoking in July. Judging by how she twists the Russian wedding ring on her finger this way and that as she speaks, it’s a sacrifice she still feels keenly. In every other respect, the 55-year-old designer oozes the kind of relaxed self-assurance common to those born into famous dynasties.
As the daughter of Tai and Rosita Missoni, the couple who set up the Italian knitwear company specialising in vibrant, flickering patterns more than 50 years ago, Angela is used to being described in her native Italy as “fashion royalty” – an epithet she feels uncomfortable with and that ill suits her.
On the day we meet she is lounging – all Italianate curves and maternal manner – against a rainbow rack of Missoni stripes in her new Sloane Street boutique, the first in London, which opened last month. I can’t help wonder at the timing: is she brave, mad – or a genius? “We were always going to do it,” she shrugs, “and I thought: why change our plans now?”
The brand, she believes, may be protected from the downturn because “we’re still kind of rare in the UK – but also because traditionally in moments of recession people have always worn brighter colours,” she says.
In a second happy accident of design, the current collection is made up of many layered pieces, none of which is as expensive as the dresses, which sell for at least £1,000. “I’m sure that is why the brand is selling so well, although I’d be lying if I said I’d done it on purpose.”
Missoni herself is swaddled in sheer black tops made by her own company (“I more or less always wear at least one Missoni piece”), teamed with a pair of £40 J Crew men’s trousers and Martin Margiela black shoe-boots. The effect – a casual workaday elegance – provides an insight into her character: while Angela has retained the sumptuous vision her parents conceived when they created the brand in 1958, she is also a businesswoman with earthy instincts who insists on living five minutes away from the Missoni factory in the northern city of Varese. “Most designers don’t own factories,” she explains. “But we make our own fabrics, so I’m on the factory floor all the time.”
That practical streak explains why she didn’t throw herself into the business from the start, opting to work in a local kindergarten instead, and then raising organic chickens. “But the company was basically our home, so it was hard not to be pulled in. I grew as Missoni grew and by the 1970s we had become a really successful company.”
Understanding how hard it would be for her to work alongside his headstrong wife, Rosita, Angela’s father allowed his daughter to indulge in different creative outlets, including jewellery design. “He knew how difficult my mother was because he had to work with her every day. She is a very strong woman,” says Angela, widening her eyes, “but I’m strong, too. And when I moved on to design my own range in 1992, I suddenly realised that I could handle it on my own.”
The Angela Missoni Collection lasted for five seasons before merging with the family business. “I remember the day my mother took me aside and said: 'What you are doing is what I would like Missoni to be today.’ And that was that.”
A decade later, the instinct to modernise remains. “For the past 15 years, I’ve been trying to come up with an alternative to catwalks,” she says, throwing a frustrated look at the Missoni-clad girls walking with the deliberation of sleepwalkers up and down a podium on the flatscreen TV behind us. “Every spare five minutes I have, I try to imagine a different way of doing it – something less cold and distant. By 2010 I want there to be an alternative.
“I want to be judged on the clothes, not the performance. My parents used to hold their shows in the factory and invite a hundred people – which was the world’s press and their biggest customers like Saks, Bloomingdale’s and Joan Burstein, of Browns boutique. That was all you needed.”
She believes that the gratuitous use of famous models on a catwalk is a pointless piece of one-upmanship. “There may no longer be supermodels, but there are models who charge super prices. The whole thing becomes a power play.”
So she would never consider the estimated £50,000 runway fee for someone like Naomi Campbell a good investment? “No. I prefer to show my collections on fresh, young girls to capture that spirit. Having Naomi or Gisele in your show is really just about saying that you were able to get her.”
And yet Missoni’s most famous (and successful) campaign to date is undoubtedly the Kate Moss as Brigitte Bardot autumn/winter 2004 shots by Mert Atlas and Marcus Piggott.
“Maybe, but the funny thing was that Kate had actually been forgotten about then. She only came back really strongly later – and I know because it’s not like we paid a fortune for her.”
Unlike her colleague Roberto Cavalli, who once described Moss’s fashion range for Topshop as “badly made, stupid and bland”, Missoni is generous-spirited about celebrities trying their hand in her field. “These girls do pick up knowledge by being around fashion, so it doesn’t bother me if Sienna Miller does her own range: she has a genuine passion for clothes, so it’s not just about her using her name.”
There is a particular collaboration she herself is keen to forge. “I would like to do something with H&M because I think it is a very powerful way to reach younger girls now.”
But when it comes to capturing the youth market, Missoni’s most powerful marketing tools appear in the beguiling shapes of her two daughters, Margherita (a beautiful 25-year-old actress who serves as the unofficial face of the brand) and Teresa, 20. When they aren’t being photographed partying around the world with the likes of Mischa Barton and Drew Barrymore for the pages of Vogue, they descend – with their brother, two uncles, three step-siblings and five cousins – on the Missoni holiday house in Sardinia. “Bruno Ragazzi [Angela’s boyfriend of 15 years] will be there, sometimes with one of his ex-wives, as will my ex-husband [Margherita and Teresa’s father], and all the children revert to behaving like 10-year-olds.”
A perfect, dysfunctional family. “When you have a goal and your children are that goal, you let go of many things,” she smiles serenely.
Recession worries aside, can the old-fashioned family business model survive in the 21st century? “We are trying to reorganise the structure of the company. It is possible for everyone to have a role, but if my children decide not to, I hope they find a job they are as passionate about as I am. If you don’t get inspired by the way the bright green corner of a magazine page looks against your handbag, and imagine that colour-scheme on a dress, don’t do it.”
Missoni, 193 Sloane Square, London SW1; 020 7823 1906, www.missoni.com
By Celia WaldenLast Updated: 5:34PM BST 21 Apr 2009
A head for brights: (left to right) Missoni spring/summer 2009; spring/summer 2009; autumn/winter 2010
Angela Missoni quit smoking in July. Judging by how she twists the Russian wedding ring on her finger this way and that as she speaks, it’s a sacrifice she still feels keenly. In every other respect, the 55-year-old designer oozes the kind of relaxed self-assurance common to those born into famous dynasties.
As the daughter of Tai and Rosita Missoni, the couple who set up the Italian knitwear company specialising in vibrant, flickering patterns more than 50 years ago, Angela is used to being described in her native Italy as “fashion royalty” – an epithet she feels uncomfortable with and that ill suits her.
On the day we meet she is lounging – all Italianate curves and maternal manner – against a rainbow rack of Missoni stripes in her new Sloane Street boutique, the first in London, which opened last month. I can’t help wonder at the timing: is she brave, mad – or a genius? “We were always going to do it,” she shrugs, “and I thought: why change our plans now?”
The brand, she believes, may be protected from the downturn because “we’re still kind of rare in the UK – but also because traditionally in moments of recession people have always worn brighter colours,” she says.
In a second happy accident of design, the current collection is made up of many layered pieces, none of which is as expensive as the dresses, which sell for at least £1,000. “I’m sure that is why the brand is selling so well, although I’d be lying if I said I’d done it on purpose.”
Missoni herself is swaddled in sheer black tops made by her own company (“I more or less always wear at least one Missoni piece”), teamed with a pair of £40 J Crew men’s trousers and Martin Margiela black shoe-boots. The effect – a casual workaday elegance – provides an insight into her character: while Angela has retained the sumptuous vision her parents conceived when they created the brand in 1958, she is also a businesswoman with earthy instincts who insists on living five minutes away from the Missoni factory in the northern city of Varese. “Most designers don’t own factories,” she explains. “But we make our own fabrics, so I’m on the factory floor all the time.”
That practical streak explains why she didn’t throw herself into the business from the start, opting to work in a local kindergarten instead, and then raising organic chickens. “But the company was basically our home, so it was hard not to be pulled in. I grew as Missoni grew and by the 1970s we had become a really successful company.”
Understanding how hard it would be for her to work alongside his headstrong wife, Rosita, Angela’s father allowed his daughter to indulge in different creative outlets, including jewellery design. “He knew how difficult my mother was because he had to work with her every day. She is a very strong woman,” says Angela, widening her eyes, “but I’m strong, too. And when I moved on to design my own range in 1992, I suddenly realised that I could handle it on my own.”
The Angela Missoni Collection lasted for five seasons before merging with the family business. “I remember the day my mother took me aside and said: 'What you are doing is what I would like Missoni to be today.’ And that was that.”
A decade later, the instinct to modernise remains. “For the past 15 years, I’ve been trying to come up with an alternative to catwalks,” she says, throwing a frustrated look at the Missoni-clad girls walking with the deliberation of sleepwalkers up and down a podium on the flatscreen TV behind us. “Every spare five minutes I have, I try to imagine a different way of doing it – something less cold and distant. By 2010 I want there to be an alternative.
“I want to be judged on the clothes, not the performance. My parents used to hold their shows in the factory and invite a hundred people – which was the world’s press and their biggest customers like Saks, Bloomingdale’s and Joan Burstein, of Browns boutique. That was all you needed.”
She believes that the gratuitous use of famous models on a catwalk is a pointless piece of one-upmanship. “There may no longer be supermodels, but there are models who charge super prices. The whole thing becomes a power play.”
So she would never consider the estimated £50,000 runway fee for someone like Naomi Campbell a good investment? “No. I prefer to show my collections on fresh, young girls to capture that spirit. Having Naomi or Gisele in your show is really just about saying that you were able to get her.”
And yet Missoni’s most famous (and successful) campaign to date is undoubtedly the Kate Moss as Brigitte Bardot autumn/winter 2004 shots by Mert Atlas and Marcus Piggott.
“Maybe, but the funny thing was that Kate had actually been forgotten about then. She only came back really strongly later – and I know because it’s not like we paid a fortune for her.”
Unlike her colleague Roberto Cavalli, who once described Moss’s fashion range for Topshop as “badly made, stupid and bland”, Missoni is generous-spirited about celebrities trying their hand in her field. “These girls do pick up knowledge by being around fashion, so it doesn’t bother me if Sienna Miller does her own range: she has a genuine passion for clothes, so it’s not just about her using her name.”
There is a particular collaboration she herself is keen to forge. “I would like to do something with H&M because I think it is a very powerful way to reach younger girls now.”
But when it comes to capturing the youth market, Missoni’s most powerful marketing tools appear in the beguiling shapes of her two daughters, Margherita (a beautiful 25-year-old actress who serves as the unofficial face of the brand) and Teresa, 20. When they aren’t being photographed partying around the world with the likes of Mischa Barton and Drew Barrymore for the pages of Vogue, they descend – with their brother, two uncles, three step-siblings and five cousins – on the Missoni holiday house in Sardinia. “Bruno Ragazzi [Angela’s boyfriend of 15 years] will be there, sometimes with one of his ex-wives, as will my ex-husband [Margherita and Teresa’s father], and all the children revert to behaving like 10-year-olds.”
A perfect, dysfunctional family. “When you have a goal and your children are that goal, you let go of many things,” she smiles serenely.
Recession worries aside, can the old-fashioned family business model survive in the 21st century? “We are trying to reorganise the structure of the company. It is possible for everyone to have a role, but if my children decide not to, I hope they find a job they are as passionate about as I am. If you don’t get inspired by the way the bright green corner of a magazine page looks against your handbag, and imagine that colour-scheme on a dress, don’t do it.”
Missoni, 193 Sloane Square, London SW1; 020 7823 1906, www.missoni.com
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