‘Venice needs to be coloured with love and passion. Like a precious jewel of delicate and incomparable beauty’.
Colour influences the soul, Vasily Kandinsky once said. For Angela Missoni, heir to a unique iconographic heritage, colour is a family matter. After 24 years at the creative helm of the fashion house founded in 1953 by her father Ottavio and mother Rosita, she has decided to follow new paths, illuminating them with the colours of creativity and imagination that have always distinguished her personality.
It seems perfectly natural, therefore, that Angela should have accepted to be the spokesperson for our Association, taking on the role of Ambassador, to recount small and great stories of the Serenissima. The Venice in her heart is cloaked in memories that are, as always, highly coloured: ‘Since the 1970s we have had a house in Venice from which we can see the Bridge of Sighs. Papà used to say: this is the nearest place where they speak my language. Mamma is considering the possibility of doing an exhibition in Venice in September on Ottavio and the Missonis. Because Venice is our other city: my partner Bruno Ragazzi has a Venetian mother. And we have so many friends here’.
In Venice there’s also Timoteo: ‘This is the last bùrchio in the Venetian lagoon, 35 metres by 8, the only one of its kind in the lagoon. Papà saw it moored at Torcello when he was visiting his friend Barba Bortoluzzi. He fell in love with the boat immediately, so he bought and restored her, having sails made bearing the three cheetahs on the coat of arms of the town of Zara (now Zadar). Timoteo, which was the residence of the painter Diavolin, became a reference point for the jet-set over the years, especially during the Film Festivals’.
You are our new Ambassador. How do you see this role?
‘With my vision of life. To go beyond certain obstacles, Venice needs to be coloured with love and passion. The city needs to feel alive and truly inhabited: a city that has been a capital of history, splendour and magnificence for 1,600 years cannot and must not become another Disneyland. Venice is like a precious jewel and this is how she should be treated: by protecting her delicate and incomparable beauty’.
Fondamenta Rezzonico
Dorsoduro 3144
30123 Venezia (VE)
T. +39 346 3750277
info@venicefoundation.org