Cutlery, HB pencils and coat hangers on a dress sounds like a bad GCSE art project that you've stuffed in the attic and hoped would disappear. But Mary Katrantzou promised to discover the "beauty in the everyday in a print" and elevate the mundane to the sublime. On paper the design brief could have easily read as contrived, novelty costume. However, as always, the Greek designer delivered a stand-out collection so elaborate and complex that I've had to lie down with a head-ache.
Katrantzou designs with militant integrity. This season she teamed up with Ecole Lesage; the Parisian embroidery house to help realise her digital prints with couture finesse. Running intricately from top to toe, every inch of the collection was painted with these enveloping, warped images.
This time, the designer took household items and churned them into a repetitive print. Little silver tea spoons were scattered across the top of a skirt but then blown up and distorted beyond recognition to cover the sleeves. Her precision was forensic.
Using her well crafted trompe l'oeil effect Katrantzou impressively recreated a beautiful red typewriter across the neckline of a dress. Her most breathtaking creation, however, was a 'pencil pencil skirt'; a structured knee-length dress whose bottom half was tattooed with hundreds of swirling HB pencils. Fun, amusing and magically inventive.
Even her tailoring was developed and meticulous. Flaring peplums, padded shoulders, chiffon trains and ruffling bustles proved that simplicity isn't part of the agenda. But it's still not overkill. With every Katrantzou piece there are layers to the creativity and something new to discover across every speck on that fabric. Like i said; it's enough to give you a headache.
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