The Photo-Fixated Fashion of Mary Katrantzou

Spring 2014

While digitally photo-printed fabric is fairly standard by now, London-based designer, Mary Katrantzou really does take it up a notch. In fact, because she designs not just the textiles, but the clothing they are made into, she’s been managing to make it new, season after season since Fall 2009.
Katrantzou finds inspiration in everything from men’s brogues to interior design photography. I'm thinking that the aesthetic might simply be called “Photoshop,” where there are no limits to possibilities of image manipulation. Details like the decorative scrollwork on banknotes or the perforations on a wingtip shoe are enlarged to colossal proportions, and the "scale tool" pours her models into gigantic perfume bottles. Nothing, be it a formal garden, a No. 2 pencil, or a skyscraper is safe from being sliced, chopped, duplicated, mirrored, and illogically reconfigured. Then, on top of the dazzling (and sometimes dizzying) print effects, the fabric is engineered into garments, with architectural precision."It's hellishly difficult to put a placement print on a bias-cut dress," said the designer when she started working with softer silhouettes.

You can see all of her collections at Style.com, where these photos are from. It seems that each season's review expresses some version of wonder as to how Katrantzou has succeeded, yet again, in causing jaws to drop.

Spring 2014

Fall 2009

Fall 2013

Fall 2012

Spring 2013

Spring 2011

Chromatic Inversions

I don’t know what made me decide to “invert” this coral-sprouting goddess, using Photoshop, but it looked so cool that I tried it on everything. Here are the ones that also looked cool …

Daphne by Wenzel Jamnitzer, c. 1550, Musée National de la Renaissance.


Ancient Egyptian linen, British Museum.


Egyptian tools, British Museum.


Nets of native cultures, for fishing and trapping, Peabody Museum and National Museum of Australia.


Back view of a Greek Kouros statue’s head (this is the “hair”) Metropolitan Museum of Art


Horsehair Headdress, High Plains, Dakota, Peabody Museum.


Pink feather.


Oil-soaked pelican from the Gulf. If only Photoshop filters worked
in real life …
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel