London Fashion Week, Fall 2012: Mary Katrantzou.

Digital prints have been on the rise for a while now, but Katrantzou is still queen. She's been on the radar for less than four years, but youth and the fact that she runs her own label give her liberty to pursue her strengths. And what that means at the moment is that she's producing entire shows of unique digital-print clothes season after season. Thanks to a combination of critical accolades and publicity for her new Topshop line, Fall 2012 was her true breakthrough London Fashion Week show.

pics from Style.com

Mary Katrantzou shot to the top of my favourite-designers list as soon as I saw her Fall 2011 collection last year. She deserves her good reviews for a multitude of reasons, but most importantly to me, she's creating clothes that are drastically different not only from the current fashion zeitgeist but from anything I've seen before. She's the sort of expert that creates itself -- an artist who has been developing her own visual brand for years, waiting quietly for the rest of the world to catch up. I have no doubt that there are other, lesser-known designers who don't have London Fashion Week slots who have explored prints in equally innovative ways, but Mary K is the only designer in mainstream fashion whom I'd describe as a true master of the art.