Victoria Mindova
The name of Mary Katrantzou is a world famous brand for designer clothes. Among the fans of this label are Claudia Schiffer, Sarah Jessica Parker, Beyonce, Keira Knightley, Gwen Stefani, Rihanna and a whole range of other film stars and celebrities. That name belongs to a young girl from Greece, who through hard work has turned her fantasy into a fashion sensation. It seems that the success she has achieved will be following her in the future as well.
According to the British Vouge, Katrantzou is "the Leonardo of Photoshop". With her first collection in 2008, she captured the attention of critics with the bold digital prints she herself had created. Digital print proved to be a risky decision at a time when the minimalist sentiment was still prevailing in fashion. The structure of the clothing, the precise make and the individuality of the collection appear to be the secret of success.
GRReporter had the chance to meet personally with Mary Katrantzou during one of her short visits to Athens. We wanted to know more about her, her work and how an ordinary girl who is not yet thirty can conquer the world's catwalks, not as a model but as a designer. Her idea of a career was quite different in the beginning. Mary began her education in architecture.
Her love for colours made her attend a three-month course held in the world famous Central Saint 
Martins College of Art and Design. There she realized that she wanted to occupy herself with fashion professionally, wanted to have her own brand, and was ready to put all her efforts and hard work into achieving this. Her background as an architect allowed her to understand very quickly the essence of design a garment as a three-dimensional creation.
She carried out bold experiments that proved successful enough not only to impress the critics, but also to gain real customers. She was declared a young talent and this year, she was nominated for Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards. Currently, over 260 shops in different parts of the world are selling the models of her original collections. Katrantzou collaborates with the Topshop supply chain, for which she remakes her haute couture collection for a high street collection and she makes accessories for the French Longchamp too.
Her inspirations come from the most ordinary things. In previous seasons, we saw dresses inspired by the yellow pencils with pink rubbers or a print of an old typewriter playing a central role. Spring 2013 presents how stamps and banknotes can become elegant prints of sheer dresses bearing the romanticism and ease of the Mediterranean, but the elegance of the French Riviera as well.
It turned out that Mary’s family had a direct connection with Bulgaria. Their roots come from an old 
Greek family that lived in Plovdiv and later in Sofia. The Katrantzou family returned to Greece in the 1920s.
Mary Katrantzou fascinated us with her ease, sincerity and nice personality. In almost all of her public appearances, she is always dressed in black, which is in a sharp contrast to the fashion aesthetics she has developed herself. Vibrant colours, bold prints and precise asymmetry, which sink into the mind, prevail in her collections. Here's her story:
About hesitations
Success is a relative conception. I do not think that it has made me more confident. Maybe it makes me a little bolder. In other words, I believe in what I do. If I have an idea and I believe in it, I will do whatever I can to make it happen. I do not yet believe that I am ready for the next big step, but because I had proven to myself in the past that I can handle it, I continue to make efforts.
London
In London, you can start working as soon as you get your diploma. The platform they provide to show your work (London Fashion Week) and the financial aid you can get is crucial. The British Fashion Council (BFC) helps spread our work. Real customers come and see what you can do.
Some things that would have taken five years to achieve, took me only a year. What helped me was that I started to sell very quickly. So, my team grew as well. My responsibility is much greater because 25 people depend on my work.
The support of organizations such as London Fashion Week is crucial for a young designer. The fact that you are part of such an event, of the new generation of designers and have been approved to participate in this event in itself helps you. Even if the audience do not like it, it will pay attention to it. My first collection was difficult, because I relied mainly on the prints when they were not fashionable. If I had come out with the same collection in Greece, most likely no one would have paid any attention to me.
I started in a period of minimalism when nobody wanted to wear strong bright prints. To understand these aesthetics, you need the support of world-renowned names in fashion.
A turning point in her career
It was when Keira Knightley appeared at the film festival in Venice wearing my dress. I did not expect it. My work was not so popular and it was not yet widely spread to reach events on the red carpet. At that time, prints were a taboo. When I saw the dress on the red carpet, I knew that my work had the power to influence people and that prints could once again become fashionable. I thought, "It fits Keira Knightley well, it suits her very well and it will certainly make people look at prints differently."
The inspirations for each season
Sometimes there is consistency, sometimes I need to make something completely different. Sometimes 
I have said that I would no longer focus on objects. I went through the sewing machine, the book, the pencil, the chandeliers. It's never enough. For example, I had infinite inspiration. The next season I had the idea of focussing on objects of art. They were quite ornamental, they had an Asian tang and could be perceived more as symbols than as mere objects.
Next season
We will stay away from the idea of objects or something that can be associated with them. Continuity in my work as a designer is important, but I do not want to start repeating myself.
Spring 2013
Banknotes (drachmas) and stamps in the prints of the latest collection are not a socio-political 
message. I wanted to create something that would theoretically reflect world history.
I started thinking what could make you go around the world in all its parts and tried to express it in a print. And there was the idea of stamps as the main print of the collection. Then, I decided that stamps were not enough. I wanted to add other elements to my message. Another symbolic element of globalization is banknotes.
I wanted women to feel more relaxed with this collection. There are no corsets to tighten the waist. The models are much more fashionable and the lines are much looser. We also have suits because we relied mainly on dresses in the previous collections but women do not wear only dresses.
Haute couture and ready-to-wear shops
It was a big decision to launch part of our collection of the previous season in Topshop. It was taken quite deliberately. Shops and small commercial brands (high street) began to clearly imitate the models. Poor imitations began appearing everywhere. People who had bought an imitation of my clothes were thinking that they were wearing the original brand and even sent me pictures of them. Then I realized that if I could influence main fashion trends so much that they imitated me, it would be better to control this process more - to define myself how the mass production would operate and how the models would be tailored. So, we launched a simpler collection that was an everyday version of my collection from last year. The structure of the clothes is simpler in these collections.
I had a serious dispute with my boyfriend about this decision. According to him, my clothes in Topshop are like photocopies of works of art. I cannot agree with this view. The way the market is operating currently makes the imitations inevitable. If we cannot eliminate them, then it is better to make the collections more accessible, so that the public is able to access them. These types of collections appear on the shelves one season later, but they have the designer's name on them, which is a guarantee of quality.
Travelling
Travelling around different countries and learning about different cultures make you rich. I cannot do it often, but it is very inspiring when it happens - not directly for my work, but it helps change my way of thinking, it opens the mind and has its impact.
Greece
The Greek in me has helped me greatly to overcome the obstacles in front of me. It is the way we were bred, the idea that we can cope with many more things. It is not necessary to have a close specialization. All this helps.
The crisis
In terms of creativity, I think that the crisis only increases the need inside you to improve your work or art. As for fashion, I think that if you come from Greece it is difficult to step into the global market. You must first be established in the local market very well before you start expanding to foreign markets. If you are a young designer, it is not easy to become quickly recognizable because of the lack of access to a wide global audience.
... after 10 years
I hope that I will still be doing what I love doing, I will have more to give in the field in which I am now developing. I would find it very sad if it proved after 10 years that I had nothing new to present in fashion and that I had to make a dramatic change in my career.
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