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| 'astrikos' gown, Mary Katranzou S/S20 |
Fashion often runs late, but two and a half thousand years is an awfully long time to wait for a show to begin. But it took that long for one to be staged in (or rather around) the Hellenic Temple of Poseidon, jutting over the Aegean sea at Cape Sounion, the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula of Greece and built in 444–440 BC. It was the feted London-based Greek designer Mary Katrantzou who inaugurated the space with a show to close the Spring/Summer 2020 season – although, really, it was a show outside of fashion and perhaps even time, geared especially to the location, to her own heritage and the culture of her birthplace. That said, there’s an odd connection between this temple and London – following its excavation in the early 20th century, a column wound up in the British Museum, a few miles from where Katrantzou now lives and works.
Rather than aping ancient Greek chitons or sinuous drapery, Katrantzou pursued her own path. The collection was themed around not the idea of Ancient Greece, but the ideas – its place as a crucible of culture, with threads running through nearly every aspect of modern life. Trace everything back – philosophy, architecture, even the mathematics that are the basis for our hyper high-tech society – and you wind up back here. All roads may lead to Rome, but keep following them and you’ll wind up in Greece.
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