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Indeed, fashion, for all its cutting edge with aesthetics, has been slow on the uptake—and at times even embarrassingly uncool—in just about every other forward-thinking aspect of millennial life. The industry was late to embrace, and was even afraid of, the Internet, and it continues to be sluggish about environmentalism, from manufacturing to materials. But with Gens X, Y and Z moving into key demographics, it is likely only a matter of time before un-green is out, whether or not the ladies who lunch are ready to part with their crocodile bags. The fashion industry may not realize it yet (and it is hardly alone), but the moment is calling for far-out thinking of the non-hemline kind. McCartney is already there.
"My favorite is when people buy the shoes because they like them, when they don't even know," she says from a chaise longue in her namesake (and carbon-neutral) shop in New York City's meatpacking district. McCartney is baby-faced, lankier than you might expect and, dressed in ultra-skinny, faded gray jeans and strappy canvas-and-wood heels (both of her own design), appears to have the mile-long legs of a rock star, even if you didn't know her pedigree. She has come to New York to show her resort collection, which she did the previous day. Kate Hudson was among the insider crowd, which circled around models who lounged, picnic-style, on the grass of a West Village park. ("This was once the site of an insane asylum," McCartney said as she mingled, flashing an irreverent grin.) A fan of subversive style, she gave the collection a nautical theme with ironic twists. A navy-and-cream silk print dress lists the details of an old English train schedule. And accessories include neon-pink stilettos and handbags emblazoned with the word MOTHER, after a sailor's tattoo.
"There's a mind-set to Stella's clothes. It's almost like she has ripped clothes apart and put them back together with her own eye," says Jeffrey Kalinsky, president and founder of the specialty retailer Jeffrey. "There are people who are aware that her accessories are nonleather, but what's great is that they just stand up as a shoe against another shoe. We sell out of it."
McCartney's place in fashion is hard-won. After walking through open doors into the industry—at 15 she was an intern at Christian Lacroix, and she studied fashion design at Central Saint Martin's College in London, with pals Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell walking her graduation runway—she launched her own line. Soon after, she signed on as chief designer at the French label Chloé and introduced jeans and rock T shirts to the runways of Paris.
But if today her industry status is firmly established, those early collections were accompanied by question marks—as to her seriousness, her authenticity and her talent. "It took me a long time to get over that hurdle in people's eyes," McCartney says. "But I'm the kind of person who always thinks people don't take me seriously. I was coming into the shop and saw the name on the window and thought, My God, I've got my own shop in New York! That's mad! I don't ever really big-up myself."
Not big-upping herself was part of her upbringing. McCartney is the granddaughter of a prominent American lawyer and art collector whose daughter became a '60s hippie and rock photographer and married a Beatle. Her childhood, needless to say, was not lacking in creativity. "I went through a period where I thought, Do I want to be a landscape gardener? A musician or a photographer? Do I want to do food?" she says. "But I really, really loved fashion. It was the thing. I didn't look at films and go, 'Ooh, that's a beautiful planting scheme in the background.' I look at things and say, 'Look at what she's wearing. I love that color.'"
Besides, she had a front-row seat during one of fashion's grooviest eras. "I'm obviously hugely inspired by how my mum wore clothes, and my dad," she says. "But for me, it was more their attitudes. The way he would wear a bespoke suit and beard. The way she would wear a little YSL jacket with a straw vintage dress underneath. It was the attitude behind it, that I'm-going-to-do-it-my-way, I'm-allowed-to-do-this, f___-it mentality."
McCartney is carrying on the legacy just fine. —Kristina Zimbalist / New York