Talk:Mary Katrantzou

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Aesthetic and conceptual references
Katrantzou’s work is known for being artsy from the very beginning. In the development of her collections, the designer adds references from various artistic movements, from Russian Constructivism, Art Deco and Futurism to Psicodelia, Op Art, Surrealism and Hyperrealism. In her work architecture, decorative arts and jewellery are also a constant inspiration. These influences, merged and filtered by the designer herself, lead to hallucinogenic pieces of ambiguous beauty. Clothes that seem unreal and atmospheric verging delicacy and kitsch at the same time. The designer harmonizes visual opposites through the mixture of retro and futurism, the fragile and the grothesque. By the frequent use of the trompe l’oeil technique, she helps us forget the distance between idea and image, interpretation and reality, suggesting the rejection of the authenticity of images, just as Magritte and the surrealists did. This choice results in an unsettling feeling of not knowing what to expect. Of being in front of pieces of clothing and works of art at the same time. One of the most recognizable techniques in which Katrantzou leans on, and it highly characterizes her work, is digital printing. A new visual language that the designer applies thoroughly and with mastery on her architectural creations and offers multiples possibilities. This allows her to create illusory effects such as the trompe l’oeil, kaleidoscopic, hipnotic and compelling pictures that - just as a visionary Alexander McQueen did on his two last collections - create a mixture of visual pleasures and uncertainty. This technique alongside the cut, the complexity of the designs and industrial accessories, merge with the images and shapes of the patterns, making the boundary between volume, dimension and perspective disappear. This way, Katrantzou turns each piece of clothing into a harmonious and beautiful chaos full of details. Worth mentioning is the fact that, despite the complexity of ideas and the development of forms, Katrantzou knows how to maintain a purely feminine essence and a strong sense of style in each and everyone of the pieces providing her a wide and creative freedom margin.

The current absence of rules and excess of information, along with the influence of earlier times and the hustle and bustle of a city like London, are source of inspiration for our designer. She succeeds to transmit this reality through decoratively excess and technological experimentation. The designer is aware of the rules because she knows how to tighten, intertwine and sculpt them again. She is able to capture her own personal iconography in her creations delighting us in each of her catwalks with a discharge of her unique source of inspiration that boost our imagination and eyes. Imaginative and far away from trends, Katrantzou gives space to other aesthetic directions through unique and wonderful creations in her individuality that transmit a strong conviction on her style and a defiance of the prevaling minimalism of her era.

Autumn 2008 / Spring 2009
For her first collection in the autumn 2008, Katrantzou elaborated simple pencil skirt dresses that emphasized the shoulders with round forms. Each dress was embellished with oversize jewerly in the neck both, real and printed on the dress, with massive metal and wooden pieces that reminded us of the Russian Constructivism and Futuristic aesthetics. For her next collection the summer of 2009, the designer presented dresses as an extension of the latter one. She used the same aesthetic and structure of the look: colorful minidresses and more luminous, giant printed necklaces that imitate metal along side real necklaces of the same size, made out of metal and plastic. This way, she was able to level the importance of the accesory with the dress and expressed her view of fashion as a highly visual art. With these two collections, the designer allowed us to see her strong connection with jewerly and craftwork and their graphic and illusional potential.

Autumn 2009
In the next series of dresses, Mary Katrantzou got inspiration from vintage perfume bottles. The designer adapts the shapes of these bottles to the feminine body and, reminding us of Gaultier, highlights tight waists by the optic effect that give the use of vibrant and hyperrealistic printings. With this collection she gave a step forward on the way she designed silhouettes: more sculpted and complex. She adds long dresses that seem far less rigid as well as draped suede trousers. She proved again her talent as a jewerly designer by complementing the outfits with disproportianate necklaces made out of golden metalic pipes, chains and mirrors. Katrantzou started defining herself as a designer. Her point of view of fashion is one of escapism from reality and a continuous search for beauty in the most unsuspected places- places which can only be found through the fantasy.

Spring 2010
For the spring collection 2010, Katranzou presented sophisticated multicolor dresses. She stretched the trompe l’oeil to the the limit. She obtained psychodelic effects by waving and tangling patterns and fabrics This time the designer got inspired by the blown glass technique. More precisely by the master Peter Layton, who also made bracelets and necklaces for her looks. Katrantzou worked on the feminine silhouette through intuitive handmade curves giving a sense of fluidity to her dresses which, originally made out of silk, seemed made out of liquid glass when in motion. In this collection, each look has an oniric and refined universe that is wearable and functional at the same time. A utopia of vibrant glass which, through the most innovative techniques, touch us as it were the most handcrafted fashion.

Autumn 2010
Through this collection, Katrantzou makes her definite bet on the mixture of excess and a captivating aesthetic. In 2010’s Autumn catwalk, she offered a postmodernist point of view of the baroque style. In order to achieve this, Katrantzou inspired herself on the French art from the 1700s through portraits of Madame Pompadour, Nattier and Fragonard; the most grothesque rococo and through napoleonic and military motifs. The look in the pattern of the pieces depart from any geometric trend and bet on asimetric finishes with ripples of draperies on the sides. The predominant use of digital printing allows her to give free reign to the wildest decorative excesses. She adds all sorts of jewerly, gems, golden strings and sparkles to her printed fabrics reminding us of Gianni Versace’s iconic kitsch. Katrantzou created without minding her surroundings and defied, yet again, current trends by reviving reflections from the past and giving them a futuristic perspective showing us that more is more.

Spring 2011
“Ceci n’est pas une chambre” (This is not a room) is the title that the designer gave her new collection. By quoting Magritte, she plays with the idea of introducing living rooms from old villas and hotel rooms from the 70s inside the feminine silouette. The designer found her inspiration in old magazine numbers of Architecture Digest and World of Interiors. She also adopted Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton’s concept of fashion photography. In it, the model occupied a certain space in the portrait with equal significance to its interior or landscape. Here, Katrantzou reconciled with geometry in order to create a unique collection of dresses, totally symmetric - even in their pattern - and through a more hieratic skeleton. The looks are structured according to printed pictures on the dresses: ceilings fit to the shoulders, windows open in the chest, night sceneries in the pelvis and furniture that, arranged in detail, invite us to enter the intrails of the bodies across beautiful perspectives. The designer used the structure of lamp shades to build some of her skirts, a bold bet that became an instant classic and is a direct legacy of Schiaparelli and the deconstruction of surrealism. These compositions were completed by the attention to detail that defines Katrantzou’s work: glass tear drops in the hems of the skirts, fabrics that flow as if they were courtains, flowers on the sleeves that turn the arms into vases. With this collection, the designer added value to her creations, providing them with the capability of transmiting emotions far more complex like nostalgia, lirism or alienation.

Autumn 2010
On her last collection to date, Mary Katrantzou was inspired by mythical women, fashion icons and art collectors. Charismatic women such as Diana Vreeland or the Duchess of Windsor who, moved by their yearning to be holders of beauty, surrounded themselves with exotic decorative objects and were fascinated by both, chinoiserie and the most extravagant opulence. The designer offers their portraits by blending them to the spaces they inhabit through Fabergé eggs, Meissen porcelains and Ming vases. Throughout her collection, its own lushness brushes the limits of delirium, turning the overelaborated precious objects into rigid structures with a clean cut that, juxtaposed, cover the body. Mary Katrantzou overdid herself yet again unifying concept, technique and aesthetic; she allows us to travel in time, backwards and forwards. And she left us swinging between the catwalk and another dimension where only she can take us to. }} --Arno Matthias (talk) 21:31, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

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