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Stella McCartney is celebrating 25 years in business this year. Her enduring success can be chalked up, in part, to her innate understanding that the Stella woman is not a monolith. McCartney makes clothes that will take you from a workout class to a morning meeting, or from the airport to a cocktail party with a quick change in between. Or, perhaps, from the boardroom to the school run, which is exactly where McCartney is heading when she FaceTimes to chat about her resort collection, bounding down from her office and into her car, before pausing to root around in her handbag. \u201cI\u2019ll start driving soon\u2014once I can find my car keys,\u201d she said, laughing. (The handbag features a new formulation of velvety vegan suede, by the way.)<\/p>\n
That whole day-to-night\/office-to-nightclub paradigm may sound like a clich\u00e9, but McCartney constantly finds new ways to advance it. The questions she was considering this season\u2014and, really, every season\u2014included: \u201cWhat does a woman wear when she\u2019s dressed by a woman? How can we really be a kind of loyal servant to our customer in terms of that wardrobe?\u201d There was plenty of her familiar oversized tailoring in the mix, but McCartney also played around with slinkier, more figure-hugging silhouettes inspired by the softer, more liquid cuts of the suits at her graduate show. There were some sharply cut velvet suits in the mix, too\u2014a fabric she hasn\u2019t worked with in \u201ca long time,\u201d and which she designed simply because she wanted a new velvet suit in her own wardrobe. \u201cI don\u2019t have anything like it, if you can believe that,\u201d she noted. \u201cHaving designed for what feels like my entire life, you would think I have everything. But not that, so I\u2019m excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which leads to the flip side of McCartney\u2019s success: She knows her customer, because she is her customer. \u201cI like genuinely helping women solve some of their wardrobe challenges,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t want to have to go home and change if I don\u2019t have to.\u201d To wit, there were a handful of clever one-and-done dresses in bold black-and-whites and a vibrant, Anish Kapoor-worthy blue\u2014either draped so that they could spring back to life after being stuffed in a suitcase, or embellished with tufted chiffon shoulders or tulle around the neckline, meaning there\u2019d be no need to style it with jewelry. Easy peasy. She sprinkled personal touches throughout, all with her signature blend of sentimentality and irreverent humor. See: the series of lovely lead-free crystal-embellished bags inspired by the light-refracting prisms her mom would hang in the window when she was a kid, or knits with a cheeky \u201cHi Hi Hi\u201d motif inspired by a sweater her dad wore while touring Australia in the \u201970s. \u201cI just love the double entendre of that,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it\u2019s hilarious.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there was also an edge\u2014and a little sexiness\u2014to it all. Take the first, typically masculin-f\u00e9minin<\/em> outfit in the lookbook, worn by the rising Brazilian model Cailane Oliveira, who also opened her fall show in Paris: Sitting in a power pose, her loose white office shirt unbuttoned just so, wearing a fabulous pair of belted vegan leather trousers as she, for lack of a better term, \u201cman spreads.\u201d (Woman spreads?) Zoom in, however, and McCartney\u2019s more playful instincts reveal themselves in the whimsical illustration of British woodland critters that decorates the shirt, which is cut from \u201cforest-friendly\u201d traceable viscose. \u201cShe\u2019s definitely got a kick to her,\u201d McCartney said of this woman, with a smile.<\/p>\n On the subject of \u201cforest-friendly\u201d: having introduced a long list of new sustainable materials in the last runway collection, from cruelty-free feathers to CO2-absorbing denim, she enjoyed using the resort collection to expand on and refine how she\u2019s using them. \u201cYou never truly feel like you\u2019ve finished a collection,\u201d she says. \u201cEach season, I think: Why are you doing it if you\u2019re not perfecting what you do<\/em>?\u201d The latest innovation she\u2019s attempting to fine-tune? How to work with deadstock in a broader range of categories, including knits and silk. She\u2019ll only do it, though, if there\u2019s enough of the fabric available to go into full production. \u201cIf they can\u2019t take it all the way from sample to manufacture, then that doesn\u2019t count as deadstock to me,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n Rather delightfully, deadstock pieces such as the kaleidoscopic garter-stitch scarves count among the collection\u2019s most joyous items. \u201cBecause this collection drops during the Stella-bration season,\u201d she says, referring to her 25th anniversary, \u201cI wanted it to have a more celebratory feel.\u201d McCartney knows that sustainable fashion is a serious business better than anyone, which is exactly why she can have such fun with it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n