Stella McCartney Brand Book

ABOUT
STELLA McCARTNEY
AGENT OF CHANGE
Inspired by her parents and equipped with an uncompromising
passion to create a future that is environmentally friendly
and beautifully designed, Stella McCartney is the face
of innovation and activism in sustainable fashion.
Stella McCartney is a creative, a scientist, a tech entrepreneur
and a farmer all rolled into one. “It’s fascinating because I grew
up on an organic farm and now what I do for a living really
is farming,” she says. “And I think that that’s something that
people don’t really realize —that in fashion design, we’re actually
just farming the land, but instead of making a veggie patty
out of it, we’re making a jacket. That connection is something
that I find really inspiring and challenging. It just drives me”.
Today, Stella McCartney is known as one of the most innovative
designers of our generation. A vocal vegetarian and animal
rights activist like her parents, Stella decided at the age of
12, when she set her sights on being a fashion designer, never
to use leather, fur, or feathers in her creations. For a luxury
fashion designer to turn her back on leather is like a guitarist
boycotting the C chord. A large share of the luxury industry’s
profits come from leather shoes and bags, usually as gateway
purchases for customers whose budgets wouldn’t normally
stretch to ready-to-wear.
McCartney credits her initial interest in conscious living to
her upbringing. She was raised on an organic farm in East
Sussex, England, where she says she “understood the elements”:
nature, seasons, animals. “It’s just how I’ve always looked at the
Earth,” she explains. “I didn’t have the conventions or baggage
that most other generations have had. My parents broke that
rule of ‘You have to eat meat. You’re gonna die if you don’t eat
meat.’” Her vegetarian parents were outspoken animal rights
activist. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, her mother Linda co-authored
cookbooks with meatless recipes and developed her own line of
vegetarian frozen meals. In 1999, PETA’s first Linda McCartney
Memorial Award was presented by Paul McCartney to Pamela
Anderson. On her upbringing, McCartney said “what kid
doesn’t love growing up in a field, with sheep around, or riding
a horse, or watching dragonflies? Those are my best memories
as a child. More so than going on a private jet to Brazil to go
and see a gig with 20,000 people”.
McCartney studied Fashion Design at the prestigious Central
Saint Martins design school, in London. In 1995, the graduate
show involved eight looks, each requiring footwear. “I worked
really hard at that,” she recalls. “It was hard enough to find
someone to make shoes with no minimums. When you’re a student,
it’s virtually impossible.” But McCartney searched until
she found a shoemaker willing to help make her eight pairs in
animal-friendly fabrics to match her collection.
The show was a sensation. McCartney asked her friends Kate
Moss and Naomi Campbell, who happened to also be the most
famous supermodels in the world, to walk the runway. Her
parents sat in the front row; her dad had composed a new song
for the occasion. The show made the pages of the New York
Times. Her father and Campbell were quoted. Stella was not.
The shoes and the clothes didn’t even get a mention. But that’s
not the point of the story. The point is: she didn’t compromise
her values. She found a way to make the shoes.
Left: Stella McCartney for Net-a-Porter.
Top: Stella, Amsterdam, 1989.
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