Stella McCartney set up her show at the Marché Saxe-Breteuil. On Thursdays and Saturdays it’s a popular open-air market, with vendors selling fresh produce, fish, cheese, bread, and flowers. Today there were representatives from companies pioneering new fabric technologies like NFW Mirum, which makes plant-based leather, and Keel Labs, which produces seaweed-based fibers; stashes of vintage Stella McCartney clothes and stacks of old records; and a merch stall dedicated to Wings, her mum and dad’s band. The market opened up to the public after the show, and all the money raised from sales will go to charities aligned with McCartney’s anti–animal cruelty, responsible-design philosophies.
The Wings booth was the key to the collection, which was an exploration of her parents Paul and Linda McCartney’s complementary style. A Google dive reveals that the much-photographed couple often dressed alike, whether they were in ’70s pantsuits on their bikes, in matching satin baseball jackets in the back of a limo, or in trenches as they disembarked from a plane with a youthful Stella (or maybe her sister Mary) in their arms.
From her father (whose fab wardrobe is one of the many things that made Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary such fun to watch) came the tuxedo shirts and cummerbunds and a terrific look that combined a willowy vest and full trousers with a white blouse trailing long poet sleeves. Her late mother was the horseback-riding, vegetarian-cookbook-author free spirit and a photographer and musician besides. The mirror-embellished dresses crocheted from Keel Labs’s seaweed-based yarn Kelsun and worn by both genders tapped into her rebellious streak. Elsewhere, the cape-like backs of tops and dresses made with taffeta from Nona Source, the LVMH-backed deadstock platform, seemed to have been designed to evoke wings, while the brocade short-shorts looked like stage-ready tour costumes.
McCartney’s press notes stated that 95% of the materials in the collection are “conscious materials.” There’s a growing consensus that sustainability no longer needs to be part of the conversation, that it’s a given. That couldn’t be further from reality. McCartney should keep drumming on about it until she’s not the only luxury designer who can stake a claim to stats like hers.
Collection
This article was originally published on Vogue Runway.
