Italian Fashion Watch

An heiress without attitude or an energy drink to promote? How refreshing. In fact, Margherita Missoni — scion to the iconic knitwear empire — doesn’t even name check the family brand when gushing about her favorite designers. Missoni, 25, hit Cannes on its first weekend to co-host a yacht party to benefit OrphanAid Africa; she helped design a rose gold and diamond bracelet selling on Yoox.com that supports the cause. She also acted in a short film showing at the festival.

Barefoot aboard a big boat, wearing floor-length, flowing white silk with a floral motif, Missoni sat down and gave us the lowdown on her own look.

Describe your personal style.

Very irrational and distinctive. I start from a piece that I want to wear and then I build on that. I am never matchy — ugh. It’s hard to dissect my style but it is definitely bohemian.

Name your Cannes essentials.

It’s quite easy because you only have to pack gowns. I wish I had brought a trench coat because of the rain, but I didn’t think that far ahead. The most important thing is flats because you have to be ready for boats. I brought one pair of Vuitton patent-leather flats in white with all these gorgeous beads on them and a pair of Prada sandals.

Where do you stay here?

I am staying at the Majestic, and then next week, I come back and stay at the Martinez for amfAR [the annual fashion gala to support AIDS research]. I would rather stay at the Hotel du Cap in Antibes. It’s much more quiet there.

Where do you perch to watch the scenery?

Nowhere. I keep it tight, in the sense of timing, and go to events. I don’t hang out here that much. I love the South of France, but it is too intense and crazy for me.

Tell us about the movie you’re in.

It’s called “I Am an Island,” and I play the patient of a psychiatric unit. There is a screening and a party for it on Sunday. There are so many directors here I would love to work with, like Woody Allen.

As the face of Missoni, do you feel like you must always wear the brand?

No! I think it is more believable if I don’t wear Missoni all the time. If I wear other designers, people know that when I do wear Missoni, I actually like it. Right now, I am wearing my grandmother’s vintage nightgown. She gave it to me the other day, and I thought it was so beautiful.

OK. Pajamas and Missoni aside, which designers do you love?

I love Louis Vuitton and Givenchy. Giambattista Valli, Proenza Schouler and Lanvin too. Oh, so many. For jeans, I wear Seven and J Brand.

Do you have a life motto?

Judge for yourself. The only person whose judgment counts is your own. I try to live by that.

Read the interview in the LA Times.

Missoni recently entered the fragrance market. With an experience of over 50 years in the fashion and luxury industry, moving into the perfume market makes perfect sense and will most likely be a terrific success.

For now, they only have a perfume collection for women. From the articles I read so far, I understand they have a whole image of what the “Missoni woman” should be. They seem to know their target audience very well, so I expect great things in the future.

“The fragrance draws upon Missoni’s 50 year heritage of luxe sensuality and embraces a ‘passione’ for life,” said Veronique Gabai-Pinsky, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Missoni Profumi.

“The Missoni woman loves the emotion of color and loves to express herself with it, be it in clothes, décor or even fragrance,” said Angela Missoni, Creative Director of the Missoni Women’s Collection. “She lives with a passion – for style, for love, for family, for life.”

The new 2007 Missoni Home collection is once again leading design trends.

Its vibrant black-and-white palette returns in 2007, but this time complemented by a bold new floral element: the rose, together with compositions of violets.

Repeated patterns coexist and support one another: roses and cubes, violets and chevrons, flecks of colour and animal motifs.

“The Missoni Home line boasts an exceptional and unique graphic approach to colour, which complements my other lines,” says Le Baldaquin owner Colette Dolman.

“It’s another direction to offer the designers and architects.”

In addition to the Missoni Home collection, Le Baldaquin Montreal home to a range of accessories that marks its reputation as the city’s pre-eminent showplace for home furnishings and décor.

Owned and run by Colette Dolman since 2005, the boutique showcases linens, silks, brocades and damasks from Europe’s top textile companies.

Le Baldaquin Montreal is also renowned for its functional art objects, from top names including Martha Sturdy, Michael Aram and Colin Schleeh.

Massimo Gasparini is Missoni’s new director.

Gasparini replaces Umberto Monte who leaves the Italian fashion house after 40 years of “profitable and intense collaboration”.

47 year-old Gasparini boasting 20 years experience has worked in fashion since 2001, previously overseeing Gucci’s watch division.

Missoni’s classic zig-zag patterns in the boldest hues are popular with Cameron Diaz, Nicole Richie, Jessica Simpson and Demi Moore.

Missoni has said the new appointment will be a new phase in the meaningful expansion of the company.

The fight against anorexia began a few months ago when the officials at Madrid Fashion Week banned extremely thin models from the catwalk, claiming they promote a false and unhealthy model of beauty. Amongst the first designers stood up and supported the decision was Giorgio Armani.

This really got to the public’s attention only last month when 21 years old Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died in hospital weighing only 88 pounds.

Now, the Italian government is teaming up with more and more fashion designers to promote a “healthy, sunny, generous, Mediterranean model of beauty.”

The new regulations require models to prove they do not suffer from eating disorders, as well as banning models younger than 16.

The code was signed Friday by Melandri and Mario Boselli, president of the Italian Fashion Chamber, which includes fashion houses like Versace, Prada and Missoni.

It will probably be adopted internationally after some time. Designers who will not comply to the regulations, will be subject to some sanctions, like being assigned less favorable hours or days for their shows.

The Rezidor Hotel Group is one of the fastest growing hotel empire in the world. With 272 hotels in 47 countries, the group is planning a massive expansion in the near future.

In its expansion plans, the group included a multi million dollar deal with Italian fashion house Missoni in order to build and operate several lifestyle hotels, wearing the fashion brand’s name: Hotel Missoni.

This deal will benefit both parties involved, and follows a trend that was started by other Italian designers like Armani and Versace, who also signed deals to have hotels worldwide wearing their powerful name.

In a fashion trend that refuses to go out of style, Giorgio Armani, Donatella Versace and other couturiers continue to moonlight as hoteliers.

Armani’s new line of luxury hotels will make its debut in Dubai, featuring a sprawling spa, plenty of Armani Casa furnishings and luxury apartments. It will be the first of at least 10 hotels in major shopping destinations like Milan and New York.

The Italian luxury brand Missoni will unveil its first hotel in Edinburgh, Scotland, and a second Casa Camper, a small boutique hotel as quirky as the company’s shoes, is going up in Berlin.

Ground is soon being broken for the second Palazzo Versace hotel, with a neo-Classical facade and a tropical fish-filled swimming pool, in Dubai’s Arabian Bays. (Versace has recently announced plans to open 15 new hotels over the next 30 years).

Those Armani, Missoni, Casa Camper and Versace hotels are expected to open in 2008, but there’s no need to wait that long.

The short list of haute hotels being unveiled next season includes Christian Lacroix’s second hotel collaboration in Paris, the Hotel Bellechasse. The Castiglion del Bosco, a 4,500-acre estate managed by the Ferragamo family’s hotel company, will open next year in Tuscany.

Rosita and Tai Missoni are perhaps fashion’s most famous mom and pop.

The business they started in 1953 became an international success, but the appeal of the label rested on not only the multi-coloured, multi-patterned knits that became instantly recognizable but also on the charm of the couple: her, a strong, familial force, and him, athletic and outgoing.

Together, they generated the kind of goodwill that made it easier for their daughter Angela, born Dec. 26, 1958, to assume responsibility for the women’s collection in the late ’90s.

Affection, inspired by domestic roots and unassuming attitudes, seems somewhat different from the kind of publicity earned by Angela Missoni’s daughter Margherita, born Feb. 22, 1983, who is part of a young, fast, photogenic European set recently covered by Vogue in a story headlined “Euroflash!”

It’s tempting to think of Margherita’s flashier side as deriving from her father Marco Maccapani, who, as a producer of fashion shows, has had a career in spectacle. But both Margherita and Angela are quick to point out that there is showiness in the Missoni blood, that Tai Missoni has always enjoyed an audience.

With last year’s launch of the Missoni fragrance collection (in partnership with the Estée Lauder Companies Inc.), Margherita earned her place on the payroll playing a more formal promotional role as the face in the campaign.

Flanked by an Estée Lauder PR team, both Missonis were in Toronto yesterday as guests at the Holt Renfrew dinner that was part of Bloor Street Entertains, Canfar’s AIDS fundraiser, and the whole holiday season is not likely to yield a more attractive mother and child.

Inevitably, age makes for differences between the two: Angela can give a fuller explanation of what a jacquard knit is; Margherita wears her trousers a few inches lower on the waist.

But there are also similarities.

Both have on pronouncedly platform shoes; both have boyfriends. Margherita’s is a guy she met at university in New York; Angela’s, a spirited, fun-loving fellow in the fashion business.

Over the past decade there has been frequent talk of Missoni being a brand rejuvenating itself. Angela will give full credit to her parents for being so creative that when she took over she really didn’t have to engineer a re-invention. But she also allows that it was necessary for her to inject enough variety and freshness that it was possible to know one season from the next, something that had become difficult to do but was increasingly imperative in the marketplace.

It seems all Italian Designers are expanding to the Asian market. That’s also the case with Missoni, which is now opening a renovated flagship store in Seoul, Korea.

Vittorio Missoni, the company’s marketing director went to Seoul personally to make sure everything goes according to the pan.

When asked about its company’s tradition and identity, this is what he had to say:

“We have created our own image, our own personality. The colors, the design, and texture have become the signature of the brand, and we just went our way whether you like it or not. That is the strength of Missoni”

Vittorio is the son of Rosita and Ottavio Missoni, who in 1953 opened their own knitwear brand, which which became one of the best known Italian fashion brands.

Missoni is present not only in the human fashion design sector. When Rosita retired, she started a home décor business and now they plan to unveil three new hotels in Dubai, Kuwait and Edinburgh.

Both Missoni and Roberto Cavalli got their inspiration for the collections they presented at Milan’s Fashion Week from the ‘60s fashion.

They didn’t go for anything too stiff or to shiny.

In fact, what they presented were classics which will still look good when a new trend will come up.

Some of Cavalli’s dresses remind you of Gypsy dresses, which look so chic right  now.

Missoni’s collection was designed by Angela Missoni.

Questioned about her new designs, she said “You know me - I like anything easy. The shapes and the softness came easily.”