Three years ago I started doing the background research for what should have been a documentary linking the 2012 London Olympic Games and the Missoni fashion house. Ottavio "Tai" Missoni was indeed an athlete and competed in the 1948 Olympic Games in London (he was a member of the Italian 400 metres hurdles team). Here he met Rosita and five months after they got married. So, in a way, without the 1948 Olympic Games there would be no Missoni fashion house.
The documentary would have been a chance to rediscover the story behind this family-based fashion house while looking at the early fashion shows with references to Emmanuelle Khan, at the concept of "Transavantmaglia" and the connections between art and the multicoloured trademark patterns of the Missoni knits, highlighting how there are deeper connections between fashion and sport, more profound than the ones spotted during the 2012 London Olympic Games by the media (patriotic nail art donned by the athletes or the cool and trendy colours of muscle bonding tape; what about the fact that preparing a catwalk show is a bit like training for a sport event or taking part in a major sport competition, since it implies physical and psychological pressures?).
The soundtrack for the documentary would have been an electronic track characterised by a mesmerising and repetitive beat calling to mind the rhythm of the knitting machines in a factory or the rhythm of athletes running.
The documentary never saw the light for too many reasons, mainly financial ones (but it warms your heart knowing that if you had been a clueless yet high profile good looking blogger with a large wardrobe and a small brain you would have had access to sponsors and money very easily...), but the story was widely mentioned by the international media in the last few months (Reuters reported about it in April) and photographs of Ottavio at the 1948 Olympics were also displayed in the Missoni window shops.
This is what's left, "Missoni '48", the documentary soundtrack by DJ Batman (from Kutmusic) accompanied by a video featuring samples of the documentary XIV Olympiad: The Glory of Sport directed by Castleton Knight. Enjoy (and take note of the final sentence by the founder of the Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin...)
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