Missoni Art Colour at the Fashion and Textile Museum

Missoni has never been known to follow the crowd. Across the decades, the Italian fashion house has carved its own niche with its playful knitwear designs and daring use of colour and graphic prints. As Missoni Art Colour comes to London’s Fashion and Textile Museum after its inaugural run at the Museo MAGA in Gallarate, Italy, it pays a fittingly diverse tribute to this most unconventional of brands.

The exhibition has been created in collaboration with the Museo MAGA and curated by art historian and museologist Luciano Caramel. Exploring the influence of 20th-century European art on Missoni’s founders, Ottavio and Rosita Missoni, it brings together more than 40 paintings from the era, drawn from both the museum’s archive and private collections across Italy. The works showcase an impressive roll-call of luminaries including Gino Severini, Lucio Fontana and Sonia Delaunay, and the exhibition is the first opportunity to see many of the pieces in the UK.

Tracing more than 60 years of Missoni creations alongside the artworks, Missoni Art Colour dissects the elements that comprise the company’s quintessential Italian style, exploring the dialogues between post-war Italian art and Missoni’s work. A retrospective of 42 looks from the archive – from its beginnings in 1953 to the modern clothing designed by Angela Missoni since 1997 – illustrates the inventive and flexible approach to knitwear. Elsewhere, the tactile nature of this central medium, wool, is celebrated with exhibits including the ‘Missoni Arazzi’, knitted wall hangings created by Ottavio Missoni in the 1970s, and the Missoni Room, an immersive installation of textures used by the brand.

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‘This exhibition is designed to showcase the creative process of knitting artwork into fashion forms,’ says Luca Missoni, director of the Missoni archive. ‘I am pleased that The Woolmark Company will be our partner in bringing this exhibition to London. Wool is an essential ingredient in our work, so much so that wool has practically become a synonym for Missoni: Missoni, knit, wool; wool, knit, Missoni.’

Missoni Art Colour is at the Fashion and Textile Museum, 83 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XF, until 4 September 2016; ftmlondon.org