Romina Karamanea

Romina Karamanea is a luxury label known for structure, texture and innovative cutting techniques.

I worked with the designer on the execution of five of her R-T-W London Fashion Week shows, crafted key messages for publics, creative copywriting and PR. 

SPRING/SUMMER 2011

Spontaneous, emotionally charged paintings with exhilarate and pensive strokes were instant inspiration for Romina this season: ‘I felt like I was in a field of colour’ in reality the designer had popped to see her artist friend Hermes for a glass of wine.

Moving away from the monochromatic: abstract expressionism and the glorification of painting is an intense stimulus. There is a languid, sensual feeling alive in the print, adjoined with a more stark statement, through the designer’s linear composition, craft and construction. 

Inspired by natural phenomena and geology the prints are featured in three remarkable colour stories: The White, The Red and The Blue.

Poetic, floor length, silk gowns styled with tailored jackets with exaggerated lapels graduating into void to reveal a second trace. Matrix-like layering, inspired from the concept of cloning, that multiply from the point it originates into a different species.

So we see interesting plays with opacity and convergence, especially when two different garments morph into one.

Voluminous, silk trousers with paper-bag waists are off set when worn with Masculine, Poplin shirts. Shirting is adjustable and sometimes merging into a sporty leotard. Diaphanous, contemporary pieces placed over classic coats and trousers that subvert time, to a more modern era. Split skirts, mesh bodies and playsuits with racer-backs inject a sporty feel that is very wearable.

For Autumn/Winter 2010-11 the collection is inspired by shadow and duality, on the surface everything is dark yet finely balanced in terms of its geometry and grace. Taking inspiration from aerial photography different textures piece together like patchwork, fused with high-gloss vinyl piping. The collection focuses on merging fine textures from Napa leather, suede, tweed and silk in a way that exudes solidarity and extravagance, imagine a Helmut Newton night woman.

We see signature body-con shapes contrasted with a softer silhouette, so far unseen from the brand as it harnesses in on both form and fluidity. There is an armour reference that balances beautifully with a more feminine voluminous feeling, with use of fine double silk georgette fabric. High-waist trousers have a liquid flowing feel, offset when worn with stricter sexy box jackets with dashes of extraordinary fine leather. We see elegant dresses that are more decadent than sexy worn by a very direct woman. Romina adds: ‘Our lady is definitely not a yes-yes person’

Wearable wool coats and tailored separates that subvert classic cuts can be worn both day and night. Oversized, sporty straight tees and jumpers in raglan styles in luxury fabrics. Hand-made leather chain accessories are used to create decorative flourishes for styling and supply a spark of sexual charge.

Overall this collection engages the real concerns of the busy, modern woman who buys into timeless style.

A/W 2009 -10

For Autumn/Winter 09/10 Romina Karamanea has taken inspiration from artificial intelligence and relief sculpture to create a challenging and directional collection that blurs the lines between art and industry. 

Sleek lines and simple shapes promote the unencumbered movement of the human body, whilst alien-like antennas are raised out of the garment, in a perfect geometry that ceaselessly accentuate the anatomy of the human form. Taking illumination from Fritz Lang Metropolis vision, everything is futuristic yet urban, a new founded aesthetic that is out-worldly yet resolutely romantic.

Using an intricately inventive technique with piping the aim was to make the garments look like they were coming-to-life, much alike the relief sculpture that are not free-standing but have a background from which the main elements of the composition project. This evokes a sense of mutation and metamorphosis that although seems fluid is in fact highly structural. 

Fabric and colour are simple, we see soft suede in red-wine, matt-black and stone, that although complexly construed are highly wearable with clear-cut focus, that is the brands definitive design direction. There is a strong reference to theatrical costume with the use of stomachers and corsetry, waists are exaggerated with a 21st century version of the peplum.

Jackets are always featured, craft with the aim to be pieces that are enduring, a life-time loved and worn.  Use of epaulettes nod to the military in an under-stated way that is always considered, from conception to the finer detailing.