Like any child from a successful business family, there is invisible pressure to one day take over from your parents running the family. Although she was blessed with stunning looks, Margherita Missoni was not immune to the pressures laid out ahead of her as the eldest grandchild of Rosita and Oviatto Missoni. After dalliance in Barcelona and New York (to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater & Film Institute none the less) the 27-year-old has rejoined the family business as the fashion house of Missoni’s accessories designer. Her first collection was sunglasses for spring/summer 2010 followed by a new range of bags for fall/winter 2010-11, but it wasn’t an easy step with her mother Angela as the creative director.
“For me, it was admitting I’m coming home,” Margherita tells the Telegraph. “It was like saying to my mother, ‘I’ll be back in your life.’ I was the only one who had left like that, and as I’m also the first grandchild I have a relationship with my grandparents that none of my siblings or cousins has. So for me it was intense. Giving up fashion for ever would have also meant cutting off my family. So going back meant a lot of different things.”
She tried many times to tell her mother that she wanted to come back, when she eventually did, Margherita reveals that she ‘cried desperately’ while she did it.
It was Margherita’s idea that the company branch into accessories – after all they have a homewares line and a chain of luxury hotels around the world.
“I always felt it was a shame that we didn’t develop the accessories considering that for most fashion brands it is the biggest side of their business,” said Margherita. “The accessories range was an obvious place for me to start. I also thought, since it wasn’t the main collection, if I f– up it’s not going to be disastrous.”
What do you think of the limited edition Missoni Fall/Winter 2010-11 bags designed by Margherita Missoni?
They are young and fresh – with a slightly edgier vibe than the clothes line. Though the €755 to €880 price tag at Colette prices it into the same realm as other European designer brands – just out of touch for people like you and me who can look but rarely buy.
