Italian 'colour genius' and fashion matriarch Missoni dies aged 93

Rosita Missoni, the esteemed Italian fashion designer who co-founded the eponymous knitwear brand, has died aged 93.

- Scarlett Conlon

Internationally admired for her colourful fashion house, which she established with her husband, Ottavio, in 1953, Missoni came to be regarded as fashion royalty for being one of a group of designers who brought the Italian ready-to-wear industry to a global market in the 1950s and 60s.

In the subsequent decades, Missoni became a household name, and the couple were often described as "colour geniuses"; their use of kaleidoscopic prints and the famous zig-zag motif became synonymous with the joys of the Italian dolce vita.

Born Rosita Jelmini in Golasecca, in the Varese region of Lombardy, in 1931, Missoni met her husband during a study break in London in the summer of 1948: he was competing in the final of the 4 x 400-metre hurdles of the Olympic Games and she was learning English at a Hampstead boarding school.