Mary Katrantzou was born in Athens in 1983, to an interior designer mother and a father who worked in textile design. Having developed an appreciation of applied design from an early age, she moved to America to study for a BA in Architecture at the Rhode Island school of design, before transferring to Central Saint Martins to complete her BA degree in textile design. Graduating from her BA in 2005, Katrantzou shifted her direction from textile design to womenswear with a focus on print. When studying at Central Saint Martin’s, she became interested in the way that printed textiles can change the shape of a woman’s body and went on to graduate in MA Fashion from Central Saint Martins with distinction.