At her fall 2011 show, Mary Katrantzou, as she said so herself, “pushed print to the limit.” If it isn’t her most iconic collection, it’s up there near the top, a tour de force from a designer still in her 20s in which Fabergé eggs, Ming vases, and other objéts became wearable works of art. Having settled into her new role as creative director of accessories at Bulgari—she was appointed in April of last year—Katrantzou is now returning to former collections at her eponymous brand, and revisiting them with more seasoned eyes.
“To be able to look back at something and refine it is at the forefront of what Bulgari has been doing—reinventing their symbols over and over again,” she said on a Zoom call. “We’re so conditioned as designers to look back and feel ‘that’s done’ and move on to the future; I’m just starting to feel that I have my own library.”
The decade-and-a-half in between then and now has not only made Katrantzou a defter designer, it’s produced a new generation of women curious about her clothes. What’s different about her work today is its wearability. The stiff, couture-ish shapes of that fall 2011 collection made a major statement on the runway, but were probably harder to pull off in real life. Here, in her new resort lineup, the lampshade skirts were replaced by sleeker and more fluid lines, and more forgiving fabrics; though some of them are still plenty grand, the price-per-wear calculations are more favorable. (Those materials have also allowed her to expand her size range, which is a sign of progress that other designers should take cues from.)
As for the prints, Katrantzou asserts they’re even better than the first time around. “I look back at some of the prints I did and I think, wow, the craftsmanship was really quite rushed, because it was always to put it out for a show. And there was so much—so many ideas that I always wanted to put out—that sometimes the idea took precedence over the level of refinement I could achieve at that time.” A ruby red velvet cocktail dress with a crystal trompe l’oeil “necklace” decorating the bodice was also quite striking.
