Mary Katranzhou (Best of show part 1)

THE Audi gala dinner last Tuesday was a great night for the young talents taking part in Asia Fashion Exchange's Star Creation competition. It was the night they got to walk the catwalk, show off their work to the fashion-conscious public - and have the opportunity to witness the beauty of Mary Katrantzou's designs up close.

Indeed, there is much they can learn from the enterprising Greek designer.

Like the Star Creation participants, Katrantzou is young - 27 - but she already has more than 60 stockists worldwide following the success of a collection launched straight after finishing an MA at London's Central Saint Martins in 2008.

'It was crazy,' she recalls.

'I was taking orders on the back of my press releases because I hadn't prepared an order form. I didn't expect to be selling my first collection.'

But she did, and to stockists such as Colette in Paris, Browns in London and Joyce in Hong Kong at that. Many supported her from the get-go; in Singapore, multi-label boutique Pois picked up Katrantzou's eponymous label when she was into her second season. 'I knew then that my work was commercially viable and I started to see it as a real business,' she says.

One only has to look at the work that she sent down the runway last Tuesday to understand why the label is so popular: Katrantzou's creations are breathakingly beautiful. Her prints - the designer's trademark - are so eye-catching and unique that they have become her handwriting, which is something few young designers possess.

Of her design process, she explains: 'What I do is take an item of luxury and turn it into prints. The first season was oversized jewellery, the second was perfume bottles and the third was blown glasses.' For her latest collection, the designer was 'inspired by the clothes that people wore in 18th century portraitures'.

Having a distinct design practice is very important for a young designer because it helps him or her to stay focused when coming up with new collections and at the same time renders the work recognisable, explains Katrantzou.

Indeed, a strong brand identity has helped the young woman stand out from her peers, but it's her clothes that are probably her biggest selling point. At Tuesday's show, for example, guests were so awed by the stunning dresses sent down the runway that a good number made a beeline to her private trunk show at Pois the next day to order them.

Then there was the capsule T-shirt collection that she designed for Topshop, which sold out right after it launched at the High Street label's flagship store on London's Oxford Street in February. 'Working on the T-shirt collection with Topshop really made a difference - it allowed people who can't afford my main line the opportunity to have one of my designs, and it allowed us to reach out to a new market,' she says. 'It also helped us to get an idea of whether T-shirts would sell well or not. While the idea had crossed our minds before, we had never made T-shirts because we thought the production might end up being too much for us to handle. So this collaboration opened the door a little for us, in that sense.'

Moving forward, Katrantzou's challenge - and she knows it - is in proving to the fashion world that she's not just a print-perfect one-trick pony. 'Every season I try to push myself a bit further, to develop the label more,' she says. 'For example, I don't have a signature pair of trousers or coat yet; that's something I need to work on. But at the same time, I don't think of trends. While everyone was focusing on minimalist clothing for Autumn/Winter 2010, I made mine more ornate, more over the top.

'I think that in order to stand out, you need to think beyond trends. I firmly believe in that.'

This article was first published in The Business Times.