Italian Resort Meets SoCal Casual With Splendid, Margherita Missoni Capsule
/The breezy collection is a nod to Splendid’s casual-luxe aesthetic and Missoni’s Italian roots.
Margherita Missoni came full circle when she partnered with Splendid on an upcoming exclusive capsule collection.
The designer and oldest daughter of Angela Missoni, along with the Los Angeles contemporary firm next month put forth a collection that blends Splendid’s Southern California casual aesthetic with Missoni’s Italian heritage and vacation wardrobe.
“Splendid approached me about a collaboration and it touched a nostalgic cord to me because the first item I ever purchased when I went to L.A. when I was a teenager was a Splendid T-shirt and so I was really happy to work on it,” Missoni said.
At the time, heavier-weight, more rigid T-shirts were all the rage, while Splendid offered something different: lighter, more supple fabric T-shirts. Missoni was hooked.
“The quality appealed to me at the time. It was a softness and this is one of the biggest qualities of Splendid,” she said. “I bought quite a few and I’ve worn quite a few during those years. I had them in every color.”
A trio of themes form the basis of the Margherita x Splendid collection: daisy and denim; red, white and the ocean; and stripes and solids across T-shirts, caftans, skirts, dresses sweatshirt-and-short sets, swimwear, bodysuits and jeans.
The daisy motif on the T-shirts is inspired from an embroidered daisy a friend did for Missoni when she got married, and elsewhere a daisy print is used on some of the chambray and terry cloth pieces. During one of the final meetings between Missoni and Splendid creative director Pamella Protzel, the creative director recalled seeing Missoni wearing a pair of her mother’s denim from the Seventies, bearing hand-embroidered daisies. That led to the last-minute addition of denim shorts to the assortment.
“She’s actually somebody I wanted to collaborate with for quite some time,” Protzel said. “When we were approaching it, there was definitely certain things we wanted to make sure we incorporated in the collection.”
Protzel pointed to Missoni’s love of color and patterns with a desire to also keep the collection what she called “easy and effortless.”
“What I wanted to do with the collection was keep their effortless key items, but infuse it with my Italian sensibility in a way,” Missoni said.
The 25-piece collection ranges from $78 to $278 and officially launches March 12.
For Splendid, the offering is about serving up something fresh to the existing customer while also turning the heads of others who don’t typically shop the label, Protzel explained.
“Right now, collaborations seem to be the hottest thing, but I think it’s really important there’s a reason and a purpose and there’s some sort of synergy between the brand and the collection,” Protzel said.
Asked if there were plans for more collaborations down the line, Missoni said, “I would love to. It was great working with them. We work very smoothly together so if they want to, I’d be happy to.”