Missoni Art Colour

I am jumping back to the end of August here because I have to get this post written and these photos used before the end of the year. It has been in the planning and editing stage for a while and I just need to get it written so that it doesn't go to waste!

The Fashion and Textile Museum hosted this Missoni exhibition from May-September and I was fortunate to catch it the week before it finished. My friend and I had a couple of days in London and this was one of the reasons that we went and we were very glad that we did.

The premise of the exhibition was to 'explore the creative process of the Italian fashion house Missoni and the textiles of Ottavio and Rosita Missoni in the context of 20th century fine art'.

Spatial structure in tension. 1952. Nino Di Salvatore

Ballerina. 1957. Gino Severini.

The beginning of the exhibition showed some of the artworks that have been an influence on the style of the Missoni house. These two were my favourites, I loved the colours.

We then walked through into the large exhibition space where there were lots of mannequins dressed in Missoni standing on tiered platforms. It was very dramatic and there was a sequence of lighting which illuminated the mannequins in various stages. It was very impressive but did make it harder to get to see everything in good light.

On the opposite wall there were textile hangings made by Ottavio Missoni, some of which he used to trial different colour ways and patterns.

We spent quite some time looking at the tiers of mannequins and their marvellous clothes. Mostly we were choosing our favourite outfits and deciding which our top five would be. There was no information available about the outfits so I am not able to say anything useful about when they are from or what they are made of. So these are just some of my favourites:

Look at the belt buckle.

I managed to get a few detailed shots of colours or patterns that I particularly liked. This was quite difficult as it was not possible to get near the mannequins except for those on the first tier.

Might need to knit something lovely and lacy in these colours.

This reminds me of patchwork.

I like the autumn colours.

The exhibition continued upstairs in the museum and showed some more of the Missoni design process including fabric swatches, sketch books, colour and pattern ideas. It was fascinating to get an insight into this process.

The above pictures show the sketch books, I found them really interesting, seeing the charting out of and the playing with the colours.

These are some of the fabric samples, including some of the very famous Missoni zigzags.

The final room showed a film about Missoni which we watched whilst sat on Missoni fabric covered bean bags surrounded by Missoni fabric framed mirrors. It was a whole wonderful explosion of colour and pattern.

 The above two photos are of the fabric mirror surrounds.

I wore the most Missoni like patterned dress that I have!