Mrs Missoni:'How I turned my family business into a £130million empire'

"London is so full of memories.Rosita Missoni, the octogenarian matriarch of the Italian fashion house, is standing in the living room of her daughter, Angelas, home.Though it has recently snowed, the sun is burning through the clouds, bathing Lake Varese and the Alps in hazy light.Rosita is wielding a souvenir tray decorated with pictures of the capitals tourist traps, with the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus at its centre.It is a reminder that London is where she met her late husband, Ottavio, the brands co-founder, who died three years ago at the age of 92.

It was on a summer-long sojourn with her convent-school classmates that the 16-year-old Rosita attended the 1948 London Olympics, nuns in tow.I noticed an Italian preparing to run in the 400m hurdles, she recalls.He had the style of a Grecian athlete.He was very handsome.Rosita willed him to win – and he did.

After a chance introduction, they arranged a rendezvous under the statue of Eros.Within five years they were married.She shows me the winged figure on a necklace that she has worn since losing her husband.Otto, my great-grandson, calls it “Cuuppidooo”, she says fondly.

It is appropriate, then, that London is hosting Missoni Art Colour, an exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum exploring the artistic origins of the brands founders.It is a celebration of a 60-year partnership that spawned one of fashions most powerful dynasties.What started in 1953 as a knitwear workshop in the basement of their home in Gallarate, Lombardy, has become a byword for breezy affluence.

After unearthing a batch of 1930s space-dyed yarns in her familys factory, where embroidery and kimonos had been made for generations, Rosita discovered knitting machines that allowed the use of an endless variety of shades: the colour-clashing striated Missoni knit was born.

The timing was impeccable.Missoni rode the wave of the ready-to-wear revolution, and was a catalyst for fashions shift from Florence to Milan.By the late 1960s, the couple were the bright young things of New York, thanks largely to US Vogue editor Diana Vreeland (a fan of Missoni vests).

In the age of the fashion conglomerate, it is impressive that Missoni, whose revenue for 2013 was €170 million, remains both profitable and resolutely a family affair.I have the memories and knowledge of someone much older, says Angela, the creative director behind its runway collections since 1997, when her mother officially stepped down.As a young girl I met everyone from the president of Neiman Marcus to Joan Burstein, who opened Browns with Missoni inside.I always preferred spending time with my parents friends to time with my companions in school.

The factory that Rosita and Ottavio built in 1968 – which remains the companys only one – was her playground, though she insists that her taking the helm was not a foregone conclusion.I wasnt seeing that as my future.I always knew I would work for a living – there had already been four generations of working Missoni women.But Id thought about being a vet or a psychologist.I was in and out of the business for pocket money, but it was my parents work.

Seeing Rosita and Angela side by side in Angelas modernist home is fascinating.Rosita looks on benevolently as her daughter halts the photo shoot to swap a vase of pink roses for sunflowers.She reties Angelas belt as Angela flips her head to tousle her long waves of dark hair.Wordless approval passes between them.How have they made working together a success where others have failed?I dont know any other story, Angela says.My parents were very liberal.I never felt pressure from them.I never felt judged.We are all different – and fashion comes down to the female genes in the family.

As the linchpin of fashions most familial empire, does Angela ever get a moment to herself?Not much, she says, sighing.At work Im always providing solutions.And Im still a constant point of reference for the children.Her daughter Margherita, 33, who runs the Margherita Kids label, is building a house 10 minutes away.Margheritas siblings, Francesco, 31, and Teresa, 27, currently working on a plus-size clothing range independent from Missoni, both keep their wardrobes at Angelas house.

Ive already spoken to Margherita twice and Teresa once today, Angela says.Not long after, her phone trills – it is her son.Three years ago, Angelas brother Vittorio, the brands chief executive, went missing in a small plane off Venezuela.It took months for the wreckage to be found, and the family dynamic was altered indelibly.Now, also for my brothers children, this has become the family house as much as my mums place, Angela says.

The warmth of Angelas home is a reflection of her often irreverent spirit.When we touch on her mothers abiding sense of style, she tells me it is something that Margherita has inherited, but that she feels has passed her by.Thats a perfection I never reached, Angela says, not unhappily.Im a bit more wild.

On cue, Rosita sweeps in to taste-check her outfit – a Missoni tunic worn over a black top, black trousers and antique Lanvin earrings – with her daughter.Perfetto, Angela says, before rolling her eyes affectionately and adding, What can I say?I told you!

Many artworks the family has long held dear are on display at the Fashion and Textile Museum.In the exhibition, first shown at the MA*GA museum in Gallarate, are paintings by stars of 20th-century Italian art, such as the luminous graphics of Luigi Veronesi, and works by the female face of the 1960s avant-garde, Dadamaino.

The canvases of Ottavio Missoni stand out – he could have become a painter.His paintings are shown alongside a series of his epic textural tapestries, which cover a wall in the main gallery.There is room for fashion, too: about 100 archival Missoni ready-to-wear pieces selected for their tone and texture are on display.Its not a fashion retrospective.Its a whole art-and-craft experience, Rosita says of the show, designed by her surviving son, Luca.Art has always been our biggest source of inspiration.

She speaks effusively of the abstract artist Sonia Delaunay, whose pattern book she found at a flea market in Paris and hurried back to show her husband – and whose inclusion here is a huge draw.To me she was a goddess.She had this idea of playing with patterns beyond the clothes, to the house, to the car.We too had this notion of creating a world of pattern.

Now 84, Rosita still spends her days at the factory, working on the Missoni Home collection.Its one thing to sketch and choose a cloth, and another to keep working on creating fabrics and textures, she says when I ask what marks out Missoni after all these years.If I want to see a stripe I can get it made in a few hours.This is a craft that distinguishes us from the other fashion houses – that, and the fact that [the family] are all cast from one knit.

Missoni Art Colour is at the Fashion and Textile Museum, London SE1, until September 4, supported by MA*GA and the Woolmark Company (ftmlondon.org)