A little bit bookish intellectual, a touch wild underneath, and a whole lot retro, M Missoni‘s Pre-Fall 2012 collection sketched a specific character: an attractive young woman of the late fifties or early sixties, that time when hemlines were changing with the same spirited swiftness as song choice from upbeat pop to screeching rock ‘n’ roll. Imagine Brigitte Bardot in “And God Created Woman,” but rather than barefoot on South of France sand, she’s scurrying around the city on a dank fall day.

Missoni’s famed knits were abstracted into semi-psychodelic Swedish graphic-art prints. Bobby socks and crisp white colors contrasting the knits suggest youthful sweetness, but there is a hint of Beatnik poet in the heavy dashes of black. And with a skinny belt cinching her figure, she’s aware of her voluptuous power.

Just like her world at the time, the M Missoni girl is on the cusp of a freedom revolution. But for now she’s content to read on weekdays and shake it late into weekend nights.