What does alphabet and fashion have in common? The answer is simple – it’s Mary Katrantzou’s Resort 2015 ready-to-wear collection where the Greece-born fashion designer expands her vocabulary of design with a collection based entirely around her typographical fantasies.
The new pre-spring collection’s theme precisely interlinks with the ideas emergent in Katrantzou's autumn/winter 2014 collection that took as its starting point of communication using embroidered symbolic imagery, rather than words. This collection, however, is lighter, more playful and also more accessible, according to Mary herself.
The letters of the alphabet become the images - graphic devices that are collaged and combined in categories based purely on visual appeal. In other words, it is an innovative transition away from digital print by brainstorming over another, way earlier, form of printing - the alphabet. The in-house design team's source material ranged from the medieval Book of Kells to Art Deco Maxfield Parrish and graphic design legend Milton Glaser with letters used in all kinds of techniques - from jacquarded to embossed to glitter-flocked onto chiffon.
Based around delightfully juicy colors, mediaeval manuscript prints, sophisticated glitter sprinkled all over, surface patterns and deliberative combinations of sheer tulle, subtle lace and embossed brocade fabrics, this season’s resort collection distinctly screams “femininity”, “summer” and “vacation” throughout. Not to mention that the shapes of the letters themselves also play a part: S-bend, V-neck, an A-shaped halter. So graphic is the content that it demands simplicity from the style, and that is obviously one of the collection’s leitmotivs.
Another highlight to mention apart from the splendid resort gowns is, of course, the line of chunky acrylic clutch bags, fashioned in the letters of designer’s own name. What a smart move, isn’t it? This is clearly a collection that underlines the fact that the undeniably talented Mary Katrantzou is thinking about writing the next chapter for her brand. Literally.
July 10, 2014
Academy of Design Australia
Parsons
Shenkar
Harrington College of Design
LOFT 42
SBID
