Dear MyDaily readers,
This is my first blog for MyDaily and I thought I would write about what has me excited this week, which is our party at Colette in Paris for the exclusive launch of our Longchamp bag collaboration.
I'm most excited because Sarah Lerfel (owner of Colette) has supported me from my very first season and so it's lovely to launch our collaboration with Longchamp with her. It's our first attempt at accessories and so a party seemed the perfect way to introduce them!
I met with Sophie Delafontaine, Longchamp's artistic director, about a year ago to discuss the possibility of working together for their SS12 collection. It was a really great opportunity for us to work with a brand with fantastic heritage and it's family run which I think is very important.
The theme of the collection is "East meet West" and the prints I designed reference Vietnam temple architecture, Thomas Heatherwick's design for their Soho store, lanterns and orchids floating in the sky, an aquarium, a flower field and the interior of Carnegie Hall. I wanted to create a Mary Katrantzou world for Longchamp and it's a surreal world designed to decorate their tote and Pliage bags!!
Longchamp and Colette did a fantastic job integrating the theme for the party. We had East meets West canapés and our very own champagne bottle adorned in one of our Longchamp prints. The most amazing part though was to see my prints blown up to cover the entire Colette façade during couture week. We had a fabulous guest list including all the people who have supported me from the very beginning - Emanuelle Alt, Suzy Menkes, Sarah Mower, Lynn Yaeger, Cameron Silver, Glenda Bailey, Mark Holgate, Babeth Djian, Paula Reed, Alex Fury, Imran Ahmed... to name but a few!
My absolute favourite moment was probably getting to meet Sarah Lerfel's mother (named Colette, of course)
Hope you like our collaboration – we love all the bags and hope you do too!! ☺
Mary x