Mary Katrantzou

LONDON, September 19, 2009
By Sarah Mower
Mary Katrantzou is among the second wave of breakout stars of the digital print revolution that has been sweeping London's designers since Basso & Brooke began experimenting a few years ago. The shift from mechanical screen printing to computer manipulations of color and pattern has meant designers like Katrantzou can achieve hitherto impossibly complex feats of imagination, and she's moving as fast as pixels and ink jets can be pushed to decorate a beautiful silk dress.

For Spring, the wavy, multicolored trompe l'oeil patterns were an intensification of the research into perfume bottles Katrantzou used last Fall. This time, she'd gotten sucked into the visual possibilities of the spiraling, fluid forms of artisanal blown glass. "It became more free-form, and kind of organic," she said of her collection. "We ended up naming some of the dresses Sea Tiger, Barracuda, and Yellow Inferno." To complete the theme, she asked a British master of art glass-blowing, Peter Layton, to make neckpieces and cuffs, and added gold Swarovski beading to a bodice section that "took six people three days to finish."

The result: far more sophisticated pieces than the front-only placement prints on shifts she did last season. It was a definite step forward for a Greek-born designer whose focus can be credited to the best creative education: Rhode Island School of Design, Central Saint Martins MA, and London's Centre for Fashion Enterprise, where she's now the recipient of free studio space and business mentorship.

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