Stella McCartney knows the secret to ageless style
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Fashion month is almost at an end. Four fashion capitals – New York, London, Milan and Paris – hundreds of shows and thousands of outfits. In a few more weeks, the bigger brands will be showcasing their Pre-Spring and Cruise collections. So perhaps this is a good moment to talk about what this relentless cycle is doing to the planet?
Stella McCartney thinks so. Credit to her. She’s not going to drop this cause like an unwanted past-season accessory. Her show opened in Monday’s blazing Paris sunshine to the soundtrack of Olivia Colman narrating a poem from Mother Earth to the human race.
Some would argue that if McCartney were really committed to cutting back consumption she’d close her label. But the dichotomy of being at the centre of a system that creates desire even while it anguishes about the effects of that desire isn’t lost on her.
She got into fashion, she says, “because I was inspired by my parents’ clothes. They always loved tailoring and that set me on a path to Savile Row”. She spent three years there, learning to set the perfect sleeves. Initially her challenge was to build a luxury fashion house that didn’t use leather or fur. Job done. Her silver chain-edged mycelium (a mushroom compound) and fabric bags can be seen dangling from fashionable shoulders all over the world. This season, along with practically every other designer, she tucked her bags under the models’ elbows close to their bodies: clutch bags that aren’t actually clutches.
As for fur, she’s developed a responsibly-sourced wool that creates the same empowering silhouette as fox fur – and it gave the models a similar swagger. “I hope there’s a way of doing all this that doesn’t look like a compromise,” she said of the luxurious coats. “The short blue one Lila wore in the show is something I’d totally wear now.” She’s referring to Lila Moss, Kate Moss’s daughter, who modelled in her show. “I saw her the day she was born… it makes me feel quite maternal backstage.”
She may be working with a new generation, but they’re still wearing looks she made current two decades ago. This collection didn’t deviate much from the classic McCartney template of masculine tailoring juxtaposed with “craftsy meets soft boho knits and silks” – and it was all the better for it. Shoulders were, to use her phrase, “strong”, and trousers boyish and slouchy, or as McCartney put it, “a bit David Byrne. I love it when the waistband sits on that hipbone.” The trousers she wore were long, pooling on the floor – so far, so fashion.
Essentially, you can get away with a trouser suit from any Stella McCartney collection of the past decade and look just fine. As illustrated by Barbara Bach, 76, who wore a black tuxedo jacket on the front row with husband Sir Ringo Starr, 83; next to them were Sir Paul McCartney, 81, and his wife Nancy Shevell, 64, in a white single-breasted coat – testament to the timelessness and agelessness of good tailoring.
Thanks to her own resources and the investment of LVMH, which owns half her business, McCartney can access cutting edge and environmentally-friendly techniques and materials, as well as recycling the sequins that were scattered across the hems of tweed jackets. But ultimately, the best thing she can do is design clothes that don’t go out of style.
Zimmermann
Revenue wise, Zimmermann, the billion-dollar Australian brand, is way bigger than McCartney. But arguably the way Nicky Zimmermann teamed soft fluid shapes with harder-edged leather pencil skirts and hipster-cut trousers harked back to the sexy, slick, masculine/feminine vibe McCartney and Phoebe Philo created two decades ago at Chloé.
Suffice to say, paring back the frills and purging (most of) the florals and instead focussing on billowing sleeves, scarf-neck blouses and easy blazers, as well as introducing some leopard print and fake fur, paid off in spades. Anh Duong, 63, one-time model and artist, sat front row in a monochrome Zimmermann chiffon maxi dress, proving this label has broadened its horizons since its Aussie socialite days. This was easily Zimmermann’s best, breeziest collection since bringing her show to Paris.
More from the shows...
