Mary Mare: The Oxymoron Collection — Mary Katrantzou’s Seasonless Capsule

Covid-19 single-handedly restructured the world's agenda. It ruptured the allure of working from home, turned grocery runs into quests only the strong survive, and forced non-hipsters into making sourdough bread for no particular reason. It even added a new oxymoron to the dictionary of fashion, thanks to Mary Katrantzou’s new seasonless capsule collection, Mary Mare.

What makes this capsule collection released on a regular resort timeline seasonless is the absence of a markdown cycle, making it available year-round. Mary Mare is the brand’s first extension beyond its pre-existing in-house ready-to-wear collection, offering customers “new ways to embrace color and print whilst they travel.”

Mary Katrantzou and her team did an excellent job pulling off a collection drop in the midst of a global pandemic and successfully figuring out a way to adapt the marketing language to the tone of the times. Fabrics are crafted from almost 100% natural fibers (the swimwear garments contain Lycra) and are size-inclusive, ranging up to a U.S. 20. The brand team even opted for an illustrated campaign when they realized a photo shoot for the collection, which had been in the pipeline for 18 months ever since garments got sold to buyers last June, was out of the question.

This collection proves old habits die hard. The fashion-industry-oriented work ethic mixed with creativity can produce a capsule collection with tailored language for the pandemic. On the flip side, does this dissemble the ongoing advocacy for slowing down the fashion industry by eliminating seasonality? If other brands also had stock of pre-made collections, didn’t get their inventory stuck in Europe, or had the means to produce, would we have seen more capsule collections this May?