DU YANG
PAINT THE TOWN NEON
FUTURE FACES OF FASHION
KALEIDOSCOPIC ISSUE FEATURING
LOUISE GRAY A GRAY DAY
MARY
KATRANTZOU
OPULENCE
LAURA MACKNESS
$5 .99
Ma y 2011
SHE’S ELECTRIC
BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING AND GO ON TILL YOU COME TO THE END: THEN STOP. - Alice And Wonderland
issue
TABLE OF CONTENTS
features 05 Louise Gray By - Emma Sells Unusual color palettes.
on the radar
18 Du Yang
13 Nagi Noda
By - Sally Mumby-Croft and
By - Diana Adams
Grashina Gablemann Iconographic places and furry monsters.
27 Laura Mackness By - Kasia Bobula Quirky unexpected details.
15 Tavi Gevinson By - Katie Couric
25 Gregorie Alexandre By - Apostolos Mitsios
35 Mary Katrantzou By - Tim Blanks and Lena Vazifdar Against-the-grain designs.
31 Fred Butler By - Stefania Vourazeri
34 Selfridges By - WeAreBlink
LOUISE GRAY
B Y
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E M M A
Louise Gray is another Central St Martin’s Graduate, who
S E L L S
has not only worked with Peter Jensen and Lanvin but
When Louise Gray says: ‘I love color everywhere’ she’s not joking – her collections are made up of joyful, quirky and always unusual color palettes that make her sophisticated yet playful
clothes pop.
also sold work to Diane Von Furstenburg. It’s the balance of simplicity and embellishment, elegance and quirkiness that make Gray’s clothes special: In her last collection, mirrored corset tops, lean blazers and sleek mini-dresses, rendered with flashes of fuchsia, lemon and royal blue, were both fashion forward and surprisingly wearable thanks to Gray’s way with a streamlined, flattering silhouette. ‘Ultimately,’ Gray says of her work, ‘it’s about fun.’ And no-one could argue with that.
THE SMILEY COMPANY Louise Gray has lent her cool and quirky sartorial talents to a new collaboration with The Smiley Company - the brains behind the Smiley brand - to create a limited edition five-piece collection for
s p r i n g / s u m m e r
2010.
$ Cha Ching $ Did you want to know how much Louise Gray is selling her clothing for? ASOS COLLECTION
Just look right here!
FARFETCH.COM
$40 $45 $45 $45
$65 $75 $80 $75 $80 $75 $80 $75
$340 $340
$399 $399
$420
$450
$485 $485
$524
$620
LOUISE GRAY
“ ULTIMATELY, IT’S ABOUT ” . -LOUISE GRAY
S/S 2010 Collection - Courtesy of Imgaetree
$620 $628
$680 $700 $710
$729
$740
$1248
$1314
LOUISE GRAY
A/W 10
S/S 11
S/S 10
A/W 08
A/W 09
S/S 09
S/S 08
Scene Stealing Fashion Showcasing the number of pieces that were in each of Louise Gray’s collections from 2008 to 2011. DRESSES
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SHORTS
SHIRTS
PANTS
SKIRTS
JACKETS
BATHING SUITS
LOUISE GRAY
A/W 2011 Collection - Courtesy of Vogue.com
Quirky, confident, and maybe a little crazy
people, but they will certainly thrill many.
too. Louise Gray puts the fun in fashion.
The collections are aesthetically pleasing
Louise was brought to my attention in the
and incredibly exciting. Based on boldly
recent ASOS magazine. However, her
textured and embellished garments, the
collections date back to Spring/
designs are created with an array of
Summer 2008. Each season has seen
materials establishing clashing
Louise’s garments go from strength to strength. Her 2010 collection being the best to date. ASOS say she’s a “mini Westwood’ and it’s easy to see why. Disregarding the fashion boundaries and setting her own rules, this rebel like nature is what Westwood thrives on. Thus, her funky pieces may not appeal to a vast array of
A/W 2009 Collection - Courtesy of Louise Gray
compilations. The mix ‘n’ match vibe is exuberant in her collaboration with the Smiley Company. This is a limited edition of clothing incorporating the smiley logo and emphasizes the talent Louise possesses.
LOUISE GRAY London Fever This illustration shows where Louise has showcased her fashion lines from 2008 to 2011.
Illustration - Courtesy of Tonwen Jones
A/W 201
Fashion East Somerset House
A/W 2008
S/S 2008
(aka London Fashion Week)
S/S 2011
A/W 2010
S/S 2010
A/W 2009
S/S 2009
This will be Louise’s fifth consecutive season at London Fashion Week; her Autumn/Winter 2011 collection is inspired by Arther Khan Photography, Jean Michel Basquiat and Cindy Lauper.
It includes prints developed into devours,
patch work &
new craft techniques. A/W 2010 Collection - Courtesy of Louise Gray
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LOUISE GRAY For her part, Louise Gray’s talent is currently on full beam. She is a print artist with a wonderful way with color, and she really has come to grips with her art-form this season.
A/W 2011 Collection - Courtesy of Vogue.com
In classic Louise Gray style,
to put into words what she
Scottish designer, Louise Gray, has been
texture will feature heavily as
means. “I was doodling, and
hailed as one to watch by British Vogue, and
will hand embroidery, from
doodling and didn’t stop. This
beadwork to various takes
is how it came out I’ve really
on traditional stitch work. In
worked on how I would wear
graduate with an MA from Central Saint
addition to this, elements of
it. How my friends would.
Martins College in London. Immediately
Louise’s Scottish heritage will
Rolled up sleeves. Simple
also permeate her latest
dresses that have a lot going
collection.
on. Easy romper suits. Great
“My inspiration?” At this
loose T-shirts. The sort of
in 2007, won the New Talent Award at the Scottish Fashion Awards. Having studied at The Glasgow School of Art, Louise went on to
following her graduation she was selected by Fashion East, and showed two seasons there.
“I’ve really got to grips with who I imagine my girl to be. She is a very London girl, quite real.” point she waves her arm in a
stuff you want to wear
sweeping circle, and attempts
immediately.” We couldn’t agree more.
4
S/S 2010 Collection Courtesy of Louise Gray
ON THE RADAR
These hair hats are so much fun! Japanese designer, Nagi Noda created them in her typical eccentric style. Nagi died a few years ago at the young age of 35 after complications in surgery after a car B Y
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D I A N A
A D A M S
accident. I was a fan of her outrageous art and style, and when I was reading about her today, I discovered she even planned her own fashion for her own death.
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ON THE RADAR
All Images Courtesy of Nagi Noda
According to this article on Tokyo Mango, apparently she knew ahead of time that she was about to die, and she got dressed up for it. She was wearing a Mark Ryden dress, Chanel boots and Viktor and Rolf black lace eyelashes. During her short life, she created ads for Nike and Coca-Cola; however, she is probably most famous for her hair hats which were styled into the form of various kinds of animals such as a lion, rabbit, elephant, rhino and many others using hand crafted hair weaves that are made using a mod or mesh wire. Everyone seemed to know who she was after she created a hair hat for Lady Gaga. She used animals as her inspiration, and as you see, these hats sport a rabbit, poodle, owls and even an elephant. Her website is still up, even though I thought it was kinda strange at first to go there knowing she isn’t alive anymore. However, after checking out everything she obviously posted before her death, I realized she is even inspiring to me now.
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ON THE RADAR
B Y
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K A T I E
C O U R I C
At an age when most of us were navigating the ins and outs of high school, Tavi Gevinson, 14, a blogger from outside Chicago, has ventured into an even more treacherous world: fashion. On her blog, thestylerookie.com, she shows a deep knowledge of clothing, an expert’s eye for pulling it together and a self-deprecating tone: “Ugh, being a pretentious teenager is exhausting,” she writes. She’s caught the attention of 35,000 daily visitors.
How does a middle-class kid from Oak Park, Illinois, become so interested in high fashion? Well, about three years ago, I started reading a lot of fashion blogs. My best friend’s older sister had one, and she pointed me in the direction of sites she thought I’d like. This was before blogs were being written about in magazines or newspapers as much as they are now, before bloggers were a part of Fashion Week. So it was this tight-knit community, which really appealed to me. Courtesy of Dustin Pittman
So fashion has become an outlet for your creativity? Yeah, definitely. It helps me either feel more like myself or see what it’s like to kind of, in a theatrical way, be someone else.
Why do you think your blog caught on? A big factor would be the age thing, and I guess the media is really intrigued by Internet— for lack of a better word—fame. But I like to think that a lot of people also just really liked it. A lot of the e-mails I get are like, “My friend showed it to me,” more than “I saw you in this magazine.”
How do your parents feel about your newfound fame? Well, they’re surprised because clothes weren’t really a part of how we were raised, so they always let me and my sisters wear whatever we wanted. But they’re supportive. They like observing it from the corner of the room at a party. After the Chanel couture show in Paris last January, I met Karl Lagerfeld, and one of the PR women asked my dad if he wanted to meet him too, and he just kind of laughed and was like, “No, that’s her thing.” Top And Bottom Images
And you’re starting a magazine—so what
Courtesy of Tavi Gevinson
will it and won’t it include? OK. As we were just saying, there’s so much sex being sold to teenage girls, and it sort of creates an identity for us before we’re allowed to find our own. So there will be a lot of that kind of sifting through everything that we’re marketed and taught and figuring out the motives behind it. I mean, just thinking about—no, I’m not going to say that.
What is it like to lead such a different lifestyle from other people your age?” I am lucky that I can go to school and have a great group of friends and do extracurricular activities as well as lead this kind of life, but I don’t think of it as a double life or Hannah Montana. It’s just my life. And I think that I get enough of that teenage world, or at least enough that I can handle before I want to go home from the party or whatever.
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S/S 2010 C
S/S 2010 Collection - Courtesy of Yang Du
Neon
BY - SALLY MUMBY-CROFT AND GRASHINA GABLEMANN
The clothes of Chinese designer Du Yang turn their wearer into iconographic faces and furry monsters. Seeing one of Yang’s catwalk shows is like watching a Monster Munch video game virus invade planet fashion. Basically, she’s not everyone else, and unlike a lot of wacky fashion,
the girls wearing her stuff still get to look hot.
Unsurprisingly for one who has
representing the possibility of fun to
studied with Vivienne Westwood,
be had when adorned in the
Giles Deacon and John Galliano and
following garmets.
whose inspirations are Victor & Rolf and Castelbajac, Yang Du’s collections are the epitome of
The press release mentions that her “previous two collections are like my travel diaries…” Subsequently this
surrealist fashion design.
interview started with the
Yang Du presented her SS10
following question:
Courtesy of Jamie Sinclair
collection as part of On|Off. The collection of bold colored oversized dresses are an eclectic interpretation of everyday clothes, whilst
We’ve heard you like traveling? Yes, it’s how I become inspired. It’s about what I see, what I get out of it and how I translate my experience into different things. It can be anything. It’s to do with something that comes from real life. Still, traveling is a bit of risk taking. When I went to Egypt, I was very excited, though it was extremely hot and there’s nothing to be found. I thought to myself, “What am I doing here?” Then, I looked around. There are hawkers taking pride in selling coca cola, loads of deformed statues, cactuses and zebras! In no time, I found myself busy taking pictures, making notes and collage. My sketchbook became my travel diary.
From what we see here, you’ve got a thing for animal, haven’t you? Yes, there are always a lot of animals involved in my S/S 2011 Collection
collections. Look at the zebra here. Everybody loves zebras but they also think that zebras are violent as well. Later on I went to the local butcher’s. It is a quite scary place but at the same it’s very interesting. Then, I put all my references
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back together. That’s how I came up with this: the Egyptian
t
D
Sinclair
DU YANG
S/S 2010 Collection - Courtesy of Yang Du
Coca Cola with the animals drinking it. Also, I added elements of the meat I saw at the butchers. Take these knitted pouches. They are my favorites. There’re Coca Cola cans in the inside the bag. The hooks from which the bags are hanging are from the butcher’s. The mouth on the inside of the bag is my label. There are cactus hats, too. There’s always a lot going on. The things look like they don’t belong to each other, but in fact, it is the way we live life. People often say I should get Coca Cola to sponsor me! For my next collection, I went to Ecuador. I stayed in the rainforest for a couple of days and spent a lot of time with children doing drawings with them. They live in quite poor conditions. Before I left, I gave them all my pens. It was nice for them to have pens so that they can draw. Also, they all wear oversized jumpers that are left behind by the tourists. That became my starting point.
Did you come across any cool animals? Yes, one character I picked up was the blue-footed booby. It only lives in Ecuador. I also saw some women carrying live chickens. They are very proud of them. You know, everyone hangs around at market, and since I was there for eighteen days, I started to recognize faces. People go there to do their shopping. They bring pigs and everything. The pigs are so adorable and tiny! But, they are aggressive and pull and tug. The women holding them on the leash must be very strong. Before I left, I bought some animalprinted socks. They eventually became part of my collection, the one I showed in the ON |OFF tent last September.
A/W 2010 Collection - Courtesy of Yang Du
S/S 2011 Collection - Courtesy of Yang Du
How was London Fashion Week as part of On|Off? It was a great experience to work with On|Off and they have been incredibly supportive through the whole process of Fashion Week, I was able to go to Paris as of the On|Off showroom. There has been great encouragement to work with someone who are special and inspirational to you.
How was Paris? The high light for me would be going to the JCDC Show, and meeting Castelbajac back stage.
Can you expand on the influence of Franco Moschino for me? I love the idea of fashion sending a message into life, the possibility of it it making a statement.
How did the exhibition Soho happen?
“ I LOVE THE IDEA OF
A friend of mine Tian Tian Zhu, a sound artist who runs the organization TIEN, who I had met a few times accidently as we both went to the same gigs, the last being Yoko Ono. We started to talk about working together at the some point in the future and now she is curating my solo exhibition at Assembly Room, it is a very sweet place.
You were previously a Painter, studying at Central Saint Martins, how was the transition to Fashion Design?
SENDING A MESSAGE INTO LIFE . � - DU YANG
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Like many designers I trained at art school first, but I have always been interested in fashion. My mum studied pattern cutting and made all my clothes when I was young.
S/S 2010 Collection Courtesy of Louise Gray
DU YANG May I ask about your design ideology? My ideology… I am very open-minded to new things, and
Where did the ideas of the hats in the SS10 Collection spring from? I was in the flower market, taking photos of everyday people and there was suddenly a moment where
mostly, look at things from a very different angle. I often go on trips, where I take lots of photos and meet lots of people. When I come back to London, I always have so much in my mind, some of them like stories which I really want to share through the clothes I design.
carton images appeared in my head. Everyone became a different kind of plant according to their look and what they wearing. It is from this place of imagination, that the cacti hats came from.
What’s your favorite color? Pink! Definitely. My mom always dressed me in pink when I was little. I didn’t like it then, but later, I realized that it’s the best color for me. She knitted me knitted jumpers for me, all in different kinds of pink. That’s where I learned to knit.
How would you describe the Yang Du woman? “Passionate - she loves fashion, life and taking risks.”
Name three things that are inspiring you for autumn/winter 2011: “Hobby horse, Man Ray and the people around me.”
What’s next for your brand? “New stocklists: Browns Focus, 10 Corso Como and Joyce in Hong Kong.”
S/S 2010 Collection - Courtesy of Louise Gray
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ON THE RADAR
B Y
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A P O S T O L O S
M I T S I O S
To consider him just a photographer would be like thinking a star was a dot in the sky. Gregoire Alexandre is instead somewhat of a creative phenomenon. Since he started out in 2002, he has unleashed energetic and brilliant compositions on art, illusionism, set design, storytelling and poetry. His work regularly features in top magazines. His photos have the important ability to communicate in a very direct way with the viewer and make him dream. Full of surreal references and using the most impossible angles, he has created a very interesting personal vocabulary.
energetic and brilliant
compositions All Images Courtesy of Gregoire Alexandre
nt
ns
Well, Gregoire, how did your passionate relationship with photography start? My first attraction for images came through cinema that I studied for a few years. Although I was into cinema, practically I felt more confident with the photographs that I was taking at that time. I liked especially the fact that I could practice on my own. Photography didn’t require the same amount of energy, money and self confidence that, by the way, I was lacking at that time.
Do you have any particular working process? How do you decide the concepts? Is there any team behind them? I like to work on commissions. That gives me the impulse to do things, the basis to build on. Then it’s a combination of thinking, feeling and mixing ideas and memories. There’s no team behind the concepts but, at some point, there is a discussion with some other people involved in the project (set designer, stylist, model...)
The use of bold imagination is one of the trademarks of your work that is full of immense details. Which are your inspirations? My inspirations are very diverse. It can be other images, paintings, films or any other piece of art, but beyond that my inspiration is often photography itself and its possibilities and limits. I must say that I find the tool quite interesting.
Which is the biggest difficulty in order to maintain your artistic principles while shooting fashion editorials or advertisements? The biggest difficulty is to develop another level of understanding in the picture without affecting the first main principle that consists in showing one specific thing. I like to bring photography a little further than expected. Advertisement is something quite different because I’m not the author of the creative part (that comes from the agencies), so don’t consider it, neither I present it as my work.
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LAURA MACKNESS
B Y
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K A S I A
B O B U L A
Central St Martins college in London has seen some of Fashion’s biggest names pass through it’s hallowed halls – John Galliano, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, Matthew Williamson to name a few – and is responsible for grooming the UK fashion greats of the future. Case in point: Laura Mackness…
A recent graduate of the Central Saint Martins MA Fashion course, Laura’s London Fashion Week debut saw her show a striking 26-piece collection which has earned her critical acclaim from UK and international fashion critics alike. Bright, witty, and verging on the surreal, Laura’s minimalist collection focused on sleek, streamlined silhouettes with quirky unexpected details – a blazer jacket with loose lapels, the structured tunic top and a trompe l’oeil fur-print coat complimented by Mackness’ flocked ‘eyelash’ necklace, coneshaped hats, and leggings with knee-cap accents.
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A/W 2009 Collection - Courtesy of Laura Mackness
ackness
A/W 2009 Collection - Courtesy of Laura Mackness
The sophisticated color palette cut with wacky humorous detail makes this the ultimate ‘tongue-in-cheek’ collection, and we predict fashion packs from Shoreditch to Soho will be sporting these looks all season. Every season the acclaimed Swedish brand Weekday collaborate with a new, emerging talent on a limited edition collection. This season the accolade is bestowed upon recent CSM graduate Laura Mackness, who continues to
pure, minimalist explore the hand drawn print designs that characterized her graduate
collection. Witty and irreverent, the wandering hands and tan-line motifs
take inspiration from the designers collection of watches, and François and
Jean Robert, who have been documenting inanimate objects with ‘faces’ since 1977.
LAURA MACKNESS
A/W 2009 Collection - Courtesy of Laura Mackness
LAURA MACKNESS FACE TO FACE
Lauras’ aesthetic is minimalist/purist with a fun twist.
Laura stumbled upon Jean and Francois Robert’s book
An element of fun has always been essential in her
“Face to Face” when she was studying on the MA and
design work, and she doesn’t think that fashion should
has been inspired by it ever since. It simply combines a
take itself too seriously! The minimalist/purist element
few of her all time favorite things, the use of everyday objects and also the trick of the eye aspect that she find my work never straying far from. As for other inspiration she looks to illustrator Saul Steinberg along with images of bikini tan lines.
is something that she worked on throughout the MA and continues to use in her newest collection. She also describes her design process as Backwards and Forwards, up and down, moments of genius and moments of disaster. Each collection is different and so it forms its own process.
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A/W 2009 Collection - Courtesy of Laura Mackness
Dazed Digital 2010
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Fred Butler is an up-and-coming prop and accessories designer and one of Britain’s most innovative fashion gems. Stylists such as Nicola Formichetti, Patti Wilson and Francesca Burns have praised her unique style and her career kicked off when her now-famous headpiece appeared in Lady Gaga’s clip ‘Telephone’ featuring Beyonce. Her impressive accessories have been seen in publications such as Dazed and Confused, i-D and Vogue.
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S T E F A N I A
V O U R A Z E R I
ON THE RADAR Someone could easily say that her designs are pure indications of our pop culture. She uses bright catchy colors, and her creations have a little something of a futuristic touch. It’s like a being part of a world with elegant and playful objects. Interestingly, Butler doesn’t keep a sketchbook, instead preferring to pin her own pieces to the wall to help her develop her ideas in a 3D manner. But for someone who has made their name for erring on the side of the unconventional, it’s perhaps not so surprising. After completing a Fashion Design degree at the University of Brighton in 2003 Butler became the assistant of set designer Shona Heath and quickly launched her website of Art Direction. In 2010, her A/W collection film Sunshower, by Elisha Smith-Leverock, was voted Best Fashion Film of the season. And now with some of the biggest stars in the fashion industry clamouring to work with her, it’s surely just a matter of time before Fred Butler is the name on everyone’s lips.
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Esper Magazine 2009
010
“ SOMETIMES
I STOP WORRYING,
BUT THAT
FREAKS ME OUT
.”
AND I GET BACK TO MY STANDARD PANIC MODE OF CONSTANT ANXIETY
- FRED BUTLER
ON THE RADAR
B Y
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W E A R E B L I N K
To help celebrate the launch of their epic new Shoe Galleries, Selfridges called on Blinkart’s Lernert & Sander to create a set of striking sculptural installations that take iconic shoe design to surreal extremes.
The late, great Alexander McQueen could do anything, but he specialized in the strange and beautiful. So when The Hairpin alerted us to Lernert and Sander’s tribute to the extreme shoe for Selfridges, it was clear that the design duo took a page from McQueen’s breathtaking book. Shoes made of irons, brooms and modern sewing machines are not meant to be worn, but mix the banal with the extreme -- which is more beautiful than boring appliance design, anyway. The Dutch duo have taken seven of the most mundane of household domestic appliances and comedically refashioned them into divine creations. What looks like an oversized pink Chanel clog, on closer inspection is actually a dishwasher built into the body of the shoe. A dust buster becomes iconic Alexander McQueen predator shoes; sewing machines are remodeled into a pair of Yves Saint Laurent skyscrapers while two slick black irons are transformed into Stella McCartney stilettos. “We wanted to turn stock items into startlingly smart footwear. A humorous take on fashion as an ideal escape from the daily grind.”
All Images Courtesy of Lernert & Sander
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OPULENCE B Y
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T I M
B L A N K S
A N D
L E N A
V A Z I F D A R
Business sense mixed with standout designs, Mary Katrantzou is wielding a velvet gloved iron fist into the fashion world. Or a heart of glass, some would say, judging by her latest collection, part-inspired by glass-blower Peter Layton and the florid art of the French rococo; all underpinned with the steely business acumen that got her multiple press notice while still a student at Central Saint Martins.
From her baby-steps at Rhode Island School of Design, print designer Katrantzou had already staked her ambition on a place at London’s premier college for fashion, under the guidance of the Professor Louise Wilson - mentor of the late, great Alexander McQueen. It was not long after graduation day that Colette, Paris tastemaker boutique of international cool, was asking to stock her designs. Soon after came her first collection as qualified designer in 2009.
S/S 2011 Collection - Courtesy of Mary Katrantzou
MARY KATRANTZOU
Katrantzou’s perfume bottle collection at home in her native Greece was the inspiration for her perfume bottle dresses that aroused controversy and admiration on release. Describing herself as an “outcast of the print world”, she is a designer who rarely wears her own designs and is a harsh critic
F/S 2009 Collection - Courtesy of Mary Katrantzou
of the print scene. She places her against-the-grain designs in the wider context, comparing her own latest ‘maximalist’ collection to the Versace aesthetic in the ’90s, which operated in the midst of an overall minimal-style era of fashion. Her latest collection takes on the approach of rococo 18th Century artists, who captured women as beautified objects and says her designs do the same.
For her first stand-alone show, Mary Katrantzou came up with a conceit so dazzling, so artful, but so elementary that it made you wonder why no one else had attempted it. She’d been looking at the highly stylized seventies photography of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin when it occurred to her that the interiors in the pictures were just as important as the models.
“With this collection, I wanted to put the room on the woman, rather than the woman in the room.” You could say Hussein Chalayan attempted something similar ten years ago, but his pieces were elements of a conceptual performance, while Katrantzou’s were desirable clothes to be worn. The fact that they were also surreal masterpieces of the digital printer’s craft only made them more seductive.
Katrantzou’s reputation precedes itself and she is swiftly making a name for herself as a young, international creative wunderkind. Her work has been featured in publications like Vogue and The New York Times, and her various collections can be found at the powerhouse for fashion’s finest— Barneys. She was also the recipient of the NEWGEN Award, which created a space for her to showcase her first standalone show at London Fashion Week this past spring. On top of her haute-couture accolades, Katrantzou is also taking her designs from high-end to high-street, producing a second
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collection for English fashion retail leader, Topshop and launching a perfume called Trompe L’Oeil in collaboration with Six Scents.
MARY KATRANTZOU
Katrantzou’s Spring/Summer 2011 collection, with themes focused around interiors, is an artful collection of unique yet wearable pieces. Simple window frames become the central focal point with sleeves that appear like curtains on structured, angled, colorful frocks that are swinging with modernity. They are feminine in their chassis, creating wearable visual snapshots—a woman, her body becoming a room of its own. Katrantzou has been quoted as saying, “With this collection, I wanted to put the room on the woman, rather than the woman in the room,” and she does this ideology justice. Some dresses are finished with ruffled details cascading from the body in waves of curtains and fringe, creating soft movement. Victorian lampshades become skirts and her use of angled curves of fabric create a playful 3-D effect to the interior landscapes that adorn the woman’s bodies. It stays feminine and pretty with silky blouses tucked into the mini crinoline lampshade skirts and swashes of elegant color—greens, bright yellows and cool pastels create collage-like creations of the surreal.
m.” S/S 2011 Collection - Courtesy of Mary Katrantzou
KNITTE R
re-set t F
S/S 2011 Collection - Courtesy of Mary Katrantzou
MARY KATRANTZOU Each carefully created masterpiece is a stand-alone art piece and has lifted prints from the likes of Architectural Digest and The World of Interiors. The designer is a master of creating illusions with her work and is well known for her vivid graphic prints that border on
The upcoming Autumn/Winter collection is a collaboration with Atelier Swarovski and will likely be as grand. All of her collections have used a sense of hyperrealism, and her most recent only adds to her portfolio of interesting avant-garde designs. Over a few
photography. Each garment carefully draws the viewer
short years, Katrantzou’s brand has become synonymous
into the rooms creating values of depth. They are all
with eccentric, show-stopping elegance and the designer
beautifully crafted, thoughtful in their curves and carefully selected swathes of chiffon.
shows no signs of bringing in her creative reigns any time soon.
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Each garment has a distinctive edge—necklaces act as parts of chandeliers and staircases reflect necklaces. All are dreamlike and create a sense of wonder.
“ I GAVE THE TE RS IN ITALY A
t the machines
rantzou
THEY HAD TO
FOR EVERY SINGLE LINE. - MARY KATRANTZOU
”