Applause at Missoni, but an Empty Stage MILAN -- Rising for a standing ovation at the end of the Missoni show, as much in respectful sympathy as praise, the crowd here this afternoon found itself clapping for no one. Rather than take a well-deserved bow for a show that built strongly on continued efforts to grow the Missoni brand beyond its signature zigzag knitwear, the designer Angela Missoni did not wait for the finale to duck out a back door. She was fleeing the scrum of cameras and reporters hoping for further comment on the disappearance of Ms. Missoni's brother, Vittorio, chief executive of the family owned company, whose plane disappeared after takeoff from the Los Roques archipelago, off the coast of Venezuela. In her public statements as well as in private communications, Ms. Missoni has held fast to the belief that her older sibling and his five fellow passengers are alive nearly a week after the plane vanished, those close to the designer say. A welter of conflicting reports in the news media have stoked a sense of possibility, the Italian telephone company Telecom Italia Mobile confirming to a local television station that Guido Foresti, one passenger's son, had received a text message from his father on the plane reading: "Call now, we are reachable." Mr. Missoni's son, Ottavio Missoni Jr., told The Corriere della Sera, a leading newspaper: "My father will come back; we are waiting for him." He added: "I am speaking not with my head but with my heart." Refusing to cancel the autumn 2013 show was itself a sign of hopefulness, in the brand's continuity if not of the survival of her brother and his fellow passengers, those close to the designer said. In an unusual instance in the fashion world of basic human solidarity, the continued applause for the absent Ms. Missoni at her show's conclusion signaled a group agreement to keep that hope alive.