Have you ever seen a more epic press rollout than the one that Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey received? IMAX screenings in New York City are already sold out for mid-August dates, a full month after its debut. The Greek designer Mary Katrantzou has yet to see the movie, but its influence seems to have seeped into her collection for resort. “We set out to create prints of fantastical mythological worlds,” she said. “It’s something we haven’t done in a while.”
Katrantzou has lately taken on the creative director of accessories role at Bulgari. At her own label, she has streamlined her output to two seasons a year and focused mostly on customer friendly (read safe-ish) florals and animal prints. This collection finds her behind the oars again, her ambitions kicked up a notch or two, with embellishments and painterly prints of sweeping landscapes to match.
The event dress that opens the lookbook borrows its lavish cascades of ruffles from her fall 2019 outing, one of her last runway shows. A couple of special numbers feature fully sequined breastplates, their circular shapes creating natural cut-outs at the sides above narrow skirts below. On other dresses the print is the main event. “I wanted it to be borderline with something that looks hyper-real, hyper digital, and really pushed in terms of its intensity,” she noted. To extend the metaphor, these are clothes for Helen of Troy or Clytemnestra more than for poor, housebound Penelope.