The Greek woman fashion designer, who stands out for her boldness and creative talent and has dressed from Michelle Obama and Melania Trump, to Sarah Jessica Parker and Rihanna, fashioned the psychedelic print and the surreal clothing patterns in her designs, establishing her name in a time of difficult economic climate.
The risk she took in 2008 when she made her debut in the field of fashion, worked out well for her, making her name appear on the front pages of the most popular fashion magazines, but also her top representatives are always in the front row of her shows.
From Greece to America and from there to London
Born in Athens, Greece in 1983, with interior decorator mother and businessman father, h Mary Katrantzou is the Greek "star" in the field of fashion and haute couture. In 2005 she moved to America to study architecture at the Rhodes Island School of Design. However, she never completed them as fashion and design had already won her over.
Leaving behind her dreams of a career in architecture, she opens a new page in her life by studying at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, where she completes both her undergraduate studies in fashion design and her postgraduate studies, specializing in in women's clothing, already expressing its weakness in print. She did her internship with the also renowned Greek designer Sofia Kokosalaki, while she also collaborated with the American fashion designer Bill Blass.
In 2008, opening the show of her school graduates, the promising young designer, did not know that she was putting her own little stone in the field of fashion, making her personal mark visible from the very first moment: the prints of various patterns on the clothes. Her collection was nominated for the Harrods Award and the L'Oreal Professional Award, and after this prestigious start she secured the "Newgen" grant from the British Fashion Council for six consecutive seasons.
The following year she made her debut opening it London Fashion Week for Spring-Summer 2009 with a collection consisting of just nine dresses. Despite the paradox (due to the few pieces in the collection) he manages to collaborate with 15 famous merchants, including Colette, Joyce and Browns. The first steps of a brilliant career, which she did not even imagine, had already been taken.
Already at the dawn of her career, she managed to stand out in the field of fashion, winning the Swiss Textiles Award in 2010, with the British Fashion Award for Rising Talent in Women's Clothing completing her trophy cabinet. The Red Carpet Award at the British Fashion Awards and the BFC-Vogue Designer Fashion Fund were recently added to it.
Today the popular designer, based in the cosmopolitan London, works with more than 200 stores in more than 60 countries. Among the giants of women's fashion such as Net-a-porter, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols etc.
Her personal style
Inspired by high fashion, she went one step further with the complexity of the fabric, introducing graphics through digital crafts to her designs, approaching a… kaleidoscopic perspective in their design. Thus, she managed to change the fashion world of the 21st century, putting her own explosive signature and making her personal stamp widely known and accepted.
Now famous for the intricate digital prints on her designs, in an interview with Spindrift The "queen" of psychedelic prints, as one might call her, reveals that "sometimes you try some ideas and they fail and other times you do not even imagine the success they can achieve".
Her architectural background becomes immediately apparent in her collections with her stating about her style that "I guess it's my relationship with the architecture that came into play from the moment I decided to deal with how a woman's silhouette stands out through a 3D garment around her body ".
One of the most personal collections in her career, as she stated, was the one for Spring-Summer 2017, which was inspired by her hometown. The successful designer praised her of Greek origin through her creations, capturing in her clothes archaic motifs and meanders, Greek drawings, figures from mythology and female silhouettes from the Mycenaean and Minoan eras.
"Usually I take a more abstract approach, but this time I wanted to explore my roots," she told WWD.
Collaborations with famous companies
Although only last September her brand celebrated its first ten years of operation with Vogue adoring the designer for the successful course of her career and the amazing fashion show in London, Mary Katrantzou has managed to include in her CV collaborations with great houses and brands.
Among them are the luxury brands Moncler and Longchamp, Adidas Originals, Topshop and in the latest one with the famous lingerie brand Victoria Secret, which took place last November with the successful designer designing a capsule collection "colorful, bold and playful", such as she also characterized.
Having designed clothes for both the New York Ballet and the Paris Opera, one of the most important moments in her career is the exhibition of her work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.