Stella McCartney Brand Book

STELLA McCARTNEY
“I WANTED TO HAVE LIFE IN THE
STORE—TO BRING NATURE INTO
THE EXPERIENCE OF SHOPPING”
Three-foot tall boulders from the family farm in Kintyre, Scotland,
sit on the concrete floors, contrasted against brightly coloured
recycled foam seating, a squidgy orange silicon desk and
reclaimed Venetian wood that serves as shelving.
Paul McCartney’s old vinyl player sits in the menswear department
on the fourth floor, and visitors are invited to play his
records. A soundtrack of unpublished music composed by the
former Beatle is also played through speakers behind mirrors
and from the ceiling above the spiral steel staircase.”Audio has
such weight and magnitude in my life, probably not like for
normal people,” said McCartney.
“I want anyone to come to this store, whether you’re rich, poor,
black, white, old, young, male or female. Anyone can come. I
don’t need you to buy anything, I just want you to come and
experience the store and listen to the music.”
The main focal point of the store, the steel staircase, has caused
much contention among the Stella McCartney team, as it eats
into valuable retail space. She was advised to create a small
staircase to maximize the surface area of her shop floors, but
McCartney pushed back.
“We’ve given up a lot of retail space in the store to create an
architectural experience,” she stated.
“Architecture is a huge passion of mine and I have been the
architect in this process of creating this space. You are only allowed
to do so much architecture in retail because you are limited
in that people have to do a certain amount of shopping.”
Regarding the style of the store’s design, Stella said “There is
a brutalist architectural element to the store with the concrete
and then the rocks, and it’s sort of jarring and unsettling. Then
to see fabric, it’s all mashed up into why I do what I do. I love
brutalist architecture. I’m a big fan of brutalist touch points,
like how this fluted concrete meets the soft floor. Then the
silicon desk, did you feel it? It’s so amazing”.
McCartney hopes that the sustainable elements of her new
store, which slot in around the striking visual elements, will
urge other designers to incorporate environmental thinking
into their work.
“This is not easy for me and these shoulder-padded-shoulders
to do. I’m trying to lead by example, I’m not making a sacrifice
and I’m trying not to preach,” she added. “It’s exhausting full
stop, but we believe it and we do it and we won’t stop.”
Image top: The store references the designer’s upbringing. Boulders
from the family farm in Kintyre, Scotland, sit on the concrete floors
among living moss.
Image bottom: McCartney’s environmental mission influenced the design
of her new London store, which contains bio-plastic mannequins
made from sugar-cane derivatives.
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