This article is published in number 7 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until February 16, 2021
Sport, love and fantasy. Maybe striped. Ottavio Missoni knew that one never stops living, and overcoming obstacles. Tai, its diminutive, would be a century old. And it doesn’t take his imagination to imagine that today he would still train in his garden in Sumirago. Between hydrangeas and camellias. «I hate the gym, I prefer to hoe, so I strengthen my arms and do some movement». There are sports types: for body, heart and head. Able to play with themselves, with others, with the world. Athletics had sewn on him, he participated in the Masters championships in shot put, javelin, and even in swimming. He was tender in comforting (and encouraging) the girls who asked him: why do I never win? He joked about his competition entries: “I check the obituaries and go where there is less competition.” He was ironic also about the bad misadventures: “When the thieves came home and kidnapped me, the only regret was not being able to see the Davis Cup match between Edberg and Becker.” Always very polished. “How do young people learn at school if there are only two hours of physical education. And the scarcer the boys are, the more they ask for exemption from gymnastics. Once our company, even with the clubs, was able to sift through talents and grow champions. Today in the minor leagues people who are 30 play, but where is the youth? ». And sarcastic about vices. «With us there is no sporting mentality, nor respect for the opponent, you get hit when the linesman does not see. In my time it was tough, but in a more direct way, there was a player, Sessa, from Triestina, who went directly to the opponents’ heads on the corners ». The criticisms were also right. “In Sumirago I was funding a good women’s volleyball team. One day they came to tell me that they had to take an adult foreigner, 2 meters high. It didn’t make sense. I wanted girls, teenagers, juniors to play. They replied that it was necessary to make a show. But that’s why we went to see Wanda Osiris ».
He knew the sport: he had grown up there and loved it. Thanks also to an extraordinary physique. Already as a boy in Zara he attended all disciplines, but his idols are those of boxing, the giant Carnera, Cleto Locatelli who will face Marcel Cerdan, not yet a lover of Piaf. Tai moves to Milan. And in ’37, at the Arena, he beats everyone on 400 floors, even an American champion, and his 48 ”8 is still today among the best Italian performances of a sixteen year old. In 1941 he competed alone in the decathlon: «I was an Italian record». In Turin he trains with Foni and Rava’s Juve and in Trieste with Nereo Rocco’s team. It promises a lot, but war is a bad opponent. Ottavio leaves in 1942 for North Africa, his El Alamein lasts 24 hours, one night he takes shelter in a hole and is taken prisoner, he spends four years in Egypt “guest of His British Majesty”. These are not good conditions for those who have to feed their muscles. When he returns to Italy and on the track he wins. For Gianni Brera he is a son of Apollo, “lanky like Don Quixote”, for Lucia Bosè “a beautiful angel”. He wins seven Italian titles. At 27 he went to the London Games in ’48. «I was tall and thin as to be frightened, the war had stolen two Olympics from us. But at that moment all that mattered was surviving. In the final I finished sixth, last. My father scolded me, but I was tired, poorly prepared, I had only done 11 races. And the captivity hadn’t been a vacation. In addition, then there was no winter training, there were no diets, nor weights in the gym, just a few cross country runs. But we took away the satisfaction of eliminating the British at home in the 4 × 400, too bad that our Rocca, in the first fraction, tore, no final ». Tai does not lose courage and vision. “I understood what my life would be: to face everything I met with a fluid and light style».
Among the spectators at Wembley Stadium there is also Rosita Jelmini who is not yet 17 years old. “I was in London with the nuns, in Hampstead, because the language high school where I was studying included an internship abroad. And the nuns took us to the stadium. When Ottavio won his battery, I was sitting right above the tunnel where the athletes passed. He was handsome, with very long legs, much admired even by my companions ». The following Sunday there is a train trip to Brighton and on the way an appointment at Piccadilly Circus where there are Missoni and Tosi, the Roman cuirassier, silver in the record. «Ottavio, in flannel trousers, was very elegant in his Olympic uniform. But he was ten years older than me, damn he seemed very young, I was worried. I called him her, he called you “. Rosita returns home to Golasecca, where her family has a factory of dressing gowns and embroidered fabrics, but she doesn’t forget that meeting and for her birthday she invites that tall and thin young man. Missoni introduces herself, signs the guest notebook, and makes a drawing. In ’53 they get married. Sport is part of the triangle. In 1967 they presented their summer collection in Milan at the Solari Pool in an aquatic fashion show with inflatable armchairs and floating and transparent furniture. In ’71, in Cortina, they signed an après-ski women’s collection. In ’90, for the inauguration of the World Cup at the San Siro stadium, they interpret the African continent with their clothes, in ’94 for the closing of the World Swimming Championships they designed the costumes for “Sport in Danza” and in 2003 for the Aeros tour. But Tai still has a lot to tell, his is not a short century: at 90, in 2011, he publishes the book Ottavio Missoni: a life on the thread of wool, the autobiography of a man who runs with style, but also of a stylist who walks in a colorful and light-hearted elegance. He also has precise ideas about what football team shirts should look like. “Cotton shirts are better, I don’t understand clingy collars, I like the round or V-neck, the colors are a feeling, they don’t need to be changed, I prefer the bright ones: reds, blues, even fuchsia, I don’t see much the delicate shades, how do you cheer for lilacs, grays? But the ones I like the most are the horizontal striped shirts“. Yeah, the lines. His lines. Those of a lifetime. He also tries to apply himself, at the suggestion of Count Rognoni, founder of Cesena, but the project does not go ahead. Where there was great sport you met Missoni who took the place of the athlete on the pitch. «I was in Mexico City in ’68 and for the first time I saw Fosbury jump on his back high up, good, but if they didn’t invent mattresses that style there he dreamed. Falling on the sand, as was done in my day, broke my back. Then our myth was the American Osborne, who used the ventral. In Mexico, in the triple I also saw Gentile, Pasolini was not needed to understand that he had the face of a Greek tragedy ».
Tai was always looking ahead. In the sketch he made of Rosita on her birthday, Ottavio drew himself with the tuba, even higher, he imagined their marriage, children and grandchildren. And he also put dates, the last of 2048. A century after his Olympics. It was like this. It bypassed the future.
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