Stella McCartney Brand Book

STELLA McCARTNEY
STELLA McCARTNEY
PRE-FALL 2020
Stella McCartney is a force of fashion. Her pioneering, environmentally
conscious practice has given the industry luxury
laced with mindfulness. “Don’t we know that fashion is trying
to bring beauty into the world?” she asked. “But at the same
time we’re trying to bring the utility side, the wearable side,
and real honesty into the conversation on how we can be more
one with all the world around us, trying to meet our passion,
bringing people together. It really comes from the heart.”
The act of dressing has so many layered meanings; and even
if we’re questioning consumerism, overproduction, and all the
damage fashion is inflicting on the planet, clothes remain powerful
vectors of emotions and memories. They have the power
to cheer us up, to soothe and seduce. “That’s why I wanted to
bring the emotional side back into the collection,” McCartney
said, “and have moments of preciousness, eccentricity, and little
extra touches that make you feel special.”
McCartney’s clothes are great not just because of all the sustainable
game-changing thinking that goes into them. They
express a progressive point of view, creatively balanced between
femininity and practicality, glamour wearability, playfulness
and British cool. “At Stella, we are actually a lot women designing
for women, and there’s a lot of reasoning which goes
into the sourcing and the making,” she said, offering this as
a way of explanation for why people would choose her label.
Pre-fall offered plenty of reasons to chose Stella. Outerwear
looked great, with a play on voluminous sculptural proportions,
on trapeze and cape-like cuts, and with an emphasis on
details, like a sexy black faux-leather trench coat with a detachable
punched and scalloped collar with a romantic-tough edge.
Other little touches included the rounded mismatched buttons
playfully fastening a needle-punched city-coat in blown-up
herringbone and the long, trailing faux-leather fringes gracing
the sleeves of a roomy, sculptural camel coat, giving a sense of
eccentric dynamism. It made for quite a dramatic statement.
A range of sustainable materials added eco-conscious value as
well as creative oomph: organic cotton, sustainable viscose,
recycled nylon and polyester, sustainable viscose and wool, regenerated
cashmere, and vegan leather. New additions included
Koba Fur-Free-Fur, a recycled and recyclable plant-based material
that is so far the most sustainable animal-free fur ever
made. It was used for a white herringbone-patterned coat that
felt heavenly soft to the touch. Sustainable denim was proposed
in a new version called Coreva, the first bio-degradable stretch
denim created from plant-based yarns, free from plastic and
replacing commonly used petrol-based elastomers.
The same conscious approach was obviously extended to the
men’s line, where work-wear-inspired yet polished tailoring
could be shared in a common wardrobe and worn either by
a man or a woman. “I remember that my mom and my dad
shared a wardrobe when I was young,” she said. “I find it inspiring—and
I’ve always borrowed from men.”
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