February 20, 2017 |
Mary Katrantzou was Disney. Not in any sickly sweet sense – no pouffy dresses or sleeping ladies here – rather, the film Fantasia. You remember, the one with hippos doing twirls, pipe-playing horned cherubs and little mushrooms dancing. A bit like an acid trip for the under ten. Mary K had done a collab with Disney this season, and those stills from the film ended up finding themselves on those incredible sheer dresses that closed the show, embellished with shiny crystals and falling away into a degrade hemline. But whilst she may have had the gown, banish any typical imaginings of a Disney princess. Because this was rather, to which you may need to evoke your imagination, if our cartoon hero and heroine had somehow, after the final kiss, moulded into one person. Because there was something masculine about those first looks – the heritage fabrics, the pinched tailoring with exaggerated Prince Charming shoulder, those straight-legged trousers. But here, feminised with a dollop of breathtaking coloured fur, or rich jacquard fabrics. Beauty and the beast, perhaps. But more beauty. Beauty was everywhere (it might of been the heat, but it was so overwhelming at one point I was seeing double, possibly down to some pleasure-based seizure) – incredible dresses with hundreds of hanging crystals that twinkled as the models walked, vivid prints of flowers and waterfalls, skirts that opened up into pink pleats. Honourable mention also goes to that amazing velvet suiting, here also decorated with stills from the film. Another breathtaking offering from Mary Katrantzou. We love her. And not just because she’s Greek. But it does make us love her a little bit more.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans
