Missoni wants to grow with its home line, which now accounts for almost a third of the group’s sales and is recording double-digit growth. To give greater visibility to Missoni Home, which offers everything from textiles and furnishings to porcelain, wallpaper and more, the Italian luxury label is to open its first shop entirely dedicated to its home offer. The opening is scheduled for September in the centre of Milan, not far from the brand’s Milan headquarters.

“We’ve been making furniture for years, but the public knows us mainly for our textiles and, in particular, for our bathrobes, which are the best-sellers in our home line! With this shop, which will open in the Brera district, we want to present our entire home universe to the general public,” says Alberto Caliri, who took over as creative director of Missoni Home in 2022, still managed by Rosita Missoni, co-founder of the label. While a 41.2% stake in the brand was sold in 2018 to the Italian fund FSI.

Missoni has been active in the home sector for over thirty years. It began with the Italian company T&J Vestor, which ran the business under licence from 1983 until 2020, when it was bought by the brand. All the categories are now coordinated internally, with Alberto Caliri trying to make them interact more and more. “Textiles remain our core business, accounting for almost 60% of Missoni Home’s turnover, half of which comes from the sale of our bathrobes. But the other categories are also doing well. Not to mention real estate projects,” says the creative director.

Interior design and hotels

In recent years, Missoni Home has moved into the luxury real estate segment, supplying resort clubs and skyscrapers with its fabrics and design objects. This highly lucrative business has grown from a modest start with the decoration of a hotel in Edinburgh to the interior design of luxury residences in Miami in 2016. This year, the company has no fewer than five major interior design projects involving the common areas of large prestige towers (lobbies, lounges, terraces, roof-tops, swimming pools, as well as two or three types of flats) in Dubai, Marbella in Spain, Sao Paulo in Brazil, Toronto in Canada and Ras el Khaïmah in the United Arab Emirates.

“It’s a very important business,” says Alberto Caliri, who also mentions the Missoni resort clubs or beach clubs, interior and exterior design projects in seaside resorts with the house’s recognisable aesthetic, including pop-ups and the beach area. After Portofino in Liguria and Porto Cervo in Sardinia, two new addresses are due to be added this summer, in Italy and abroad, while the partnership inaugurated last year in the Maldives with the luxury hotel One&Only Reethi Rah has been confirmed.

At the recently-concluded Milan Furniture Fair, Missoni Home presented its first collection of garden furniture in association with Italian outdoor furniture specialist Roda. A series of sofas, poufs, deckchairs, beds and armchairs entirely personalised with the company’s own textiles, including jacquards in wool/nylon blends and loop wools.

A tighter furniture collection

For its first steps into the outdoor world, the label has chosen to work with a partner with a specialist sales network. “I believe more in this approach via a collaboration rather than a licence. It’s a meeting of two different identities. On their side, they have refreshed their line, and on ours, we have found solidity from a product point of view,” notes Alberto Caliri, who over the last two years has given a new coherence to the furniture line.

“We have tightened up the collection, which was enormous, by revising and modernising certain pieces and relying on the technical input of specialist companies who work with us. We haven’t yet entered the lighting sector, which I’d like to develop, as well as the glass sector,” explains the designer, who is already working on some prototypes in glass or Plexiglas. Alberto Caliri has also introduced new print motifs, to take the brand away from its legendary zigzag, for example, with a design of crossed ribbons, which has been well received, while remaining in line with the house’s highly identifiable language.
  
The most important part of Missoni Home, textiles, including terrycloth products, plaids, cushions and upholstery fabrics, are developed in-house and produced in Italy, as well as in Spain and Portugal for the terrycloth part, while the furniture is made by specialist suppliers in Puglia and Lombardy. Over the years, the company has enriched its offering through a number of licences, developing a tableware range with Compagnia Italiana del Cristallo, a wallpaper range with Jannelli&Volpi and carpets with the American company Stark Carpet.