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Colour of money

22 September 2012 / 15:09:57  GRReporter
3674 reads

The invitations to the fashion show of Mary Katrantzou are some of the most coveted during the Fashion Week in London. Demand is so great that even celebrities from the fashion world, such as Anna Dello Rousseau, have to watch the show behind the scenes. And this interest is justified. After the success of her previous collections, the Greek designer who presented her clothes for the first time in 2009, attracted the interest of journalists, customers and investors - as wrote a major British newspaper, Katrantzou has come to the attention of a large business group. Naturally, interest is accompanied by the inevitable dose of malice. Will the designer be able to repeat her success from previous seasons or maybe her distinctive prints will lose their power and freshness? The answers are given by newspapers and websites. Katrantzou not only doesn't bore the audience, but just the opposite, her collection leaves it speechless. Combining traditional large prints with convenience and scarcity, the designer proves to be the most important new trump card in the hands of the British fashion industry. Mary Katrantzou explains the choice of banknotes and stamps with her nostalgic mood. "When I was a kid, I used to collect stamps and banknotes which were brought to me by relatives from their travels and I used to dream", she reveals in an interview.

The Greek designer, who lives in London, impresses the fashion world with her collection. This is not the first time the 27 year old granddaughter of Nikos Katrantzou, founder of the Katrantzou Spor Company, has received favorable comments in the foreign press about her creations, including such an authoritative newspaper as "The Guardian". For a brief period, Mary Katrantzou managed to stand out mainly because of her original graphic prints decorating the fabric of the clothes she makes. In the winter of 2009, she was inspired by old bottles for perfumes. In the spring of 2011 she turned to the world of fashion and architecture. Looking at albums with photographs of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdais of the 1970s, she felt that the spaces that host models are also very important. "With this collection I wanted to put the room on the woman, rather than put the woman inside the room" describes in an interview Katrantzou. Not only do  lampions become alive and turn into mini skirts (her grandmother, Mary Gouma creates the design of the lamps), but the designer uses a variety of architectural elements which create a pseudo perspective on the fabric. For example, we see a dress, the upper part of which represents a swimming pool in a villa in Los Angeles and its lower part, the night view of the city from the porch of probably the same villa.

The designer feels very satisfied with her stay in London and has no plans to leave the city in the near future. As she explains, she would not hesitate to return to her homeland if she felt the timing was right. As a Greek who lives in London, she feels that she belongs to the minority of people who deal with fashion. Internationally recognized Greek designers are few and far between. Katrantzou has always been proud of her country, but she feels that she is part of the London scene.

The young designer began her studies at the Rhode Island School of Design in the U.S.A. and continued in Central Saint Martins in London, where she graduated with a degree in Fashion in 2004. Her debut was at the Fashion Week in London in 2007 and since then she has been climbing up. Mary Katrantzou regained the popularity of her family name, 30 years after the closure of the historic Katrantzou Spor department store in Athens.

Tags: Mary Katrantzou designer London Fashion Week
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