Stella McCartney
Stella McCartney grew up the daughter of former Beatle Paul McCartney and his rebel-souled American wife Linda, and it is little surprise that she has this nagging idea about changing the world, the fashion one.
Never mind the fact that she has risen to become one of the heavy-hitter designers of her generation—that her bespoke suits have become high-style staples as her willowy evening gowns routinely grace the red carpet. Or that the popularity of both these trademark looks, along with her cool-girl accessories (which have been known to cause hyperventilation in certain circles), prompted the Gucci Group in 2001 to invest a 50% stake in her company. Separate from any of her successes, really, McCartney has set out to question the way the world thinks of luxury, just as Elvis and the Beatles shook up our perception of music.
Since launching her label in 1995, McCartney has made a mission of designing collections that are environmentally awake. Her clothes and accessories, including shoes and handbags, don't contain a stitch of leather. And she abstains, vehemently, from using fur. "I look at things very differently from other designers," says the British-born McCartney, 37. "I am trying to pick up on the environment in which we live, so I have a different point of view. And then in other ways, I don't. I also believe in luxury, great quality, great clothing, what all good designers believe in."
Scaling the heights of luxury—McCartney has price points that induce gasps, boutiques in chic districts of the world's capitals and regular clients who include Gwyneth Paltrow, Natalie Portman and Madonna—while shunning its two favorite staples has, understandably, not been the easiest task. "People have made fun of me for years—I'm not cool because I do vegetarian shoes," she says. "But the thing is, I'm the most f______ punk rock of all of them."
Aware, if not overjoyed, that she is still ahead of her time, McCartney slips easily into the role of rebel with a cause. "It's my job to question everything around me, every day, and push it forward, whether that be a dress or where it's made," she says. "Why, as everyone looks after their bodies, you take care of what you eat, and we're questioning everything about life on this planet, are we not questioning the fact that it's barbaric to raise an ostrich for a bag? They say it's a by-product. Well, I didn't eat lizard lately.
"There's an element that's old-fashioned and disappointing about fashion," she adds. "In my level of the industry, everyone's just living in their ivory towers, and they're not pushing and questioning themselves."
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