LFW: Soundbites from behind the scenes: Mary Katrantzou, Paul Smith, Matthew Williamson
Antonio Berardi
“Everything then is made for real women but when we do the show it feels magical. […] We did lots of [transparency with the fabrics] but what we did was to build on the inside. So things were transparent but then there were bodies underneath. So it’s like there were almost dresses underneath those things, but it was nice that it felt light and summery. Lots of the fabrics were couture fabrics, so they’re kind of expensive, but we tried to do something light and easy with them.”
Mary Katrantzou
“I thought, there is something very interesting about this shoe because it defines so much about a woman, a female silhouette, and it allows you to look into the textures. […] It allowed me to develop different ideas and tie them in [because of that]. We started pleating and I thought it’s interesting, especially in the brogue it’s usually so strict, to do something that’s a lot more bouncy and a lot more free.”
Matthew Williamson
“There was a story and a journey and the beginning of the journey was to keep things simple, true to the brand, effortless, luxury, and I looked at hand-drawing and hand-painting, no computers, and let’s go back to painting and drawing, remove technology and let’s wear something that has actually been done by a person.”
Paul Smith
“When I was starting out, this look was very much what I was producing and what girls were wearing and it was quite interesting talking to students as a lot of them are saying that they have taken influence from my early work and I thought that I should have a look at some of my early work. There’s the high-waist and then the tailoring is very soft and you can wear it in a very sexy way or you can wear it with a roll-neck; it’s up to you how you wear it.”
Topshop Unique – Philip Green, CEO of the Arcadia Group (including Topshop)
“We’re still growing, we’ve got a lot to do yet; we’ve got a lot of stores opening in America next four weeks, we’re opening twenty-eight new stores in Nordstrom, we’re just starting in France, we started in Germany three weeks ago, in Amsterdam and we’re working on China.”
