Wednesday, February 25, 2009

london autumn/winter 2009 - mary katrantzou


since opening the central saint martin's graduate show last year, greek born designer mary katrantzou has established herself as a young talent to watch for her innovative use of bold graphic prints, a strong sense of colour, and a slightly surrealist sensibility executed with a vision all her own. since her graduate collection, katrantzou has continued to explore the possibilities of using digital tromp l'oeil geometric prints to enhance the silhouette of the clothes she cuts. while her graduate collection and her debut presentation last season concentrated on using blown up prints of jewelry to basically act as intended adornments, this season she was inspired by art-deco inspired illustrations of perfume bottles which she had blown up and printed on every garment she presented. ingeniously she had the neck of the bottle landing on the waist line giving the illusion of a perfectly formed hour glass silhouette. while at first glance there might be assumptions that there are hardly any differences from her first two collections, upon closer inspection one realizes that the designer is starting to slowly incorporate new ideas into her design. more specifically with new shapes. where her first two efforts concentrated on the shift to highlight the print, this time saw her playing with a softer, drapier silhouette and using the print to accentuate the movement. no doubt a lesson she learned during her tenure at sophia kokosalaki. it'll be interesting to see how this talented young designer will evolve her now signature style and use it as a foundation for future ideas or if she regretfully falls into the one trick pony trap. but for the present, no one will deny that this show has been one of the strongest and most focused collection we've seen throughout london fashion week.


photo: style.com

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