CGD

London-based Czech designer Martina Špetlová studied chemistry and biology in Prague. She went to London to improve her English and decided to study fashion at the prestigious Central Saint Martins. Having won the Chloe Textile Award for her college work, she became an intern at the studios led by Jeremy Scott and John Galliano. Since 2010, she has been building her own brand and teaching fashion design at the Academy of Arts in Warsaw. Her models are sold at Dover Street Market and on many other leading fashion platforms abroad. Her signature style features bright colours, structures and patchwork. She has often said that she designs clothes tailor-made for the structure that determines the cut. Solid silhouettes often consist of entwined and pleated leather or silk. She combines distinctive contrasting colours to achieve a remarkable graphic effect. When using a single-colour piece, she usually disrupts it with a texture. She presented her work in Prague for the first time at Designblok Fashion Week 2013 and later at MBPFW on three occasions. Featuring smooth leather, entwined leather and silk and double pleated organza, the S/S 2016 collection is about experimenting with colour combinations and altering clearly demarcated shapes. Hanging along the body like fringes, the entwined structures sometimes look incomplete and the lightweight silhouettes provide more softness and smooth motion than her previous collections.

Veronika Ruppert