Women's Spring 2011 Fashion Trends: Mary Katrantzou's 3D Prints

Fashion has been old-fashioned for quite a while now. With exceptions of course, every now and then designers seem to remember the '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s... It offers a kind of safety, I suppose, to present clothes that remind us of something, which is perfectly OK -don't get me wrong here. I'm just saying that revolutionary things could easily be deemed 'non-wearable', and thus whole collections could go either wasted, or straight in a museum.

But now the waters seem to be moving. And the person who is largely responsible for that is London-based, Greek-born Mary Katrantzou. Mary attended Rhode Island School of Design and then completed both her BA and MA at Central Saint Martins. She has previously worked for Sophia Kokosalaki and freelanced for Bill Blass, amongst other designers. Since 2008 she has been doing shows and taking part in Fashion Week. So how exactly is her work different?

Mary's design signatures are a hyperrealist aesthetic, bold graphics and industrial jewellery. But it's probably the most sophisticated thing you have ever seen!  Katrantzou said after her SS 2011 show that she worked in three dimensions for the first time while designing her prints. There is definitely an almost hallucinatory depth to the images, as they are laid over the fitted silhouettes! The images are literally depicting rooms on women, and as the designer explained: She was 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. Now, it's no accident that her trademark piece was the lampshade skirt! Her 3D prints have already gained her fame in the fashion world, and there's much more to expect from Mary in her AW 2012 collection...

See for yourselves!

Photos courtesy of IMAXtree.com and Matteo Volta

As you must have realized by now, I could kill for a Mary Katrantzou... I found many pieces at Polyvore. And her collaboration with Topshop this February is also a fact!!!  So... could I please hope for many many sales at my Etsy shop?????