Knit wit

Sometimes people know you more for your signature than your face. By signature, we don’t mean the illegible scrawl that you use to prove you’re the real owner of a half-a-million-limit platinum credit card, rather the unique stamp that you put on everything you do and elevates you into someone worth looking into.

Take Italian fashion house Missoni, for instance. Not too many people know how its founders Ottavio and Rosita Missoni look. Though their brood, Luca and Angela, who design for the brand’s menswear and womenswear, respectively, are more recognizable within industry circles, the brand really relies on their one true signature for instant recognition: their unique, patterned knitwear that features stripes, geometric lines, and abstract florals in a bevy of colors.

For 50 years, Missoni has been putting these recognizable knitted patterns in an inordinate number of styles: coats, tops, tunics, dresses, shirts, jackets, pants and even footwear. This year’s autumn/winter collection is not spared although the usual color burst has been significantly tamed into classy neutrals.

Missoni reveals more patterns for women this season: wide stripes, macroblocks, check motifs and Scots tartan on blousy tops and mini-dresses, luxurious pieces that can be glamorized further with a jeweled belt with Swarovski and malachite buckles, dark tights and long, two-color knit gloves.

For the evening, long, patterned jersey dresses with semi-precious stone details and drapes held up by brooches become all the more luxurious in inlaid silk cashmere.

Men are not exempt from the pattern skirmish, although this time the knit prints are very, very subdued just to give credence to the man that is naturally elegant and affecting an air of indifference.

Pullovers and cardigans show a hint of pattern, but it is really the shirts, morbidly shaped from classic male designs, that present the core of the collection. Trousers are kept clean and slim and, for this round at least, devoid of the Missoni signature.

The Missoni  autumn-winter 2008 collection is available at Adora in Greenbelt 5, Makati. — Ana Kalaw