Saturday 13 April 2013

My Love: Mary Katrantzou

I am a digital textile designer through and through. I love the technology that goes with it. I love learning about new technologies that are created to make printed textiles even more spectacular (e.g. 3D printing - I'll do a post on that at some point.). I love how almost any print is made possible with digital. You can imagine it, get on Photoshop or Illustrator and design it. Done. 

I'm a messy printer in the workshop, which is probably a fair reason why I love digital so much. During my last year of University, an entire chapter of my dissertation was dedicated to new technologies found in the textiles industry, and in this chapter was a small mention of Mary Katrantzou. 

To say that I was writing and researching my dissertation around October/November time in 2012 and had never heard of Mary Katrantzou is weird. I still can't believe it to this day! I happened to just come across her work whilst doing some extensive research into digital print in fashion and she popped up.



So it was here that I fell in love with her work. I look back at her first collection and can't help but think how 'Basso and Brooke' it is. So space-age and random. But since then, she has grown substantially into a truly amazing and original designer. I like how the prints are blatantly something. Sounds like a strange thing to say, but a lot of prints are just a flurry of colour and you can't really tell what they are (unless they are a floral or an animal print), but in Mary Katrantzou's designs, you can tell that that's a maze, or that's a type writer, or that's a city scape. I love it! It's like a t-shirt design on a beautiful dress. 

Images from Mary Katrantzou's first catwalk show in 2009



I also really love the fact, and this is said in the least offensive way possible, that she is a bit of a plain Jane. She looks like a lovely, regular girl. She doesn't look like a super skinny, super bossy, harsh fashionista. She just looks normal, and I like that.

I follow Mary Katrantzou on Instagram and am constantly in awe with all the photos she takes! You can definitely tell she's got a great creative touch, and sometimes some of the pictures she takes could easily become part of her next collection! To follow Mary Katrantzou on Instragram just search 'marykatrantzou' in the explore search box.

So really, the basic gist of this post is that I love Mary Katrantzou, and I hope that if you stumble across this blog and have never heard of her before that I have now introduced you to your new favourite designer.

I've picked out a couple of my favourite Mary Katrantzou garments for you to browse.












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