Never in history has a leading fashion designer been given the chance to design the apparel for their country’s Olympic team. Never, it seemed, until September of last year, when Adidas appointed Stella McCartney the role of Team GB’s 2012 designer. The Adidas-McCartney partnership was introduced in September of 2004, a critically acclaimed collection “Adidas by Stella McCartney” that has since blossomed into several more athletic fields of yoga, running and dance.
Stella certainly doesn’t count on her family connections, being the daughter of one of the world’s wealthiest, most respected and talented musicians, Sir Paul McCartney after all, to guide her way in the industry. Although family connections were useful for guiding her into the right direction as a teenager, earning an apprenticeship with Christian Lacroix for example, Stella has successfully gone on to claim her own success, launching her own label back in 1995, and since earning the nickname “Unstoppable Stella” within the fashion industry.
McCartney was born in 1971 and raised in London, where she attended a state school. She thrived during her studies at Central St Martins in London, resulting in supermodel friends Naomi Campbell, Yasmin Le Bon and Kate Moss featuring on the catwalk of her graduation show in 1995, which was seen as a naïve and controversial choice at the time.
McCartney’s eye for sharp tailoring and sexy femininity was evident from her first collection, and led her to the role of chief designer at Chloé. Stella set about rejuvenating the brand, aiming to reach out to a younger and hip audience in 1997, only two years after graduating. Achieving great success, her lacy petticoat skirts with fine tailoring were hailed a triumph at Chloé. This was just the beginning of her success, as just a few years later McCartney won the 2000 VH1/Vogue Fashion and Music Designer of the Year Award.
After four years at Chloé, Stella took the brave decision of setting up her own company in partnership with the Gucci Group, leading to boutiques being opened in London, New York and Los Angeles, her first in New York in the fall of 2002, simply under the name “Stella McCartney”. Stella McCartney currently has collections distributed in over 50 countries around the world, ranging from women’s ready to wear, accessories, lingerie, eye-wear, organic skincare and fragrance - launching the hugely successful “Stella” perfume in 2003.
Not only a critically acclaimed designer, Stella is truly unstoppable, when she’s not taking over the fashion world she’s taking care of her four young children, ranging from six to 11 months old with her publisher husband Alasdhair Willis. McCartney married Willis in a romantic ceremony in 2003 on the island of Bute, where she wore an updated version of her own mother, Linda McCartney’s wedding dress.
For her next collections, Stella plans to continue on her successful clash of femininity and masculinity of tailoring that has led to her success - “It’s about the play on masculine and feminine for me, it’s something I can’t get away from…it’s that moment of tension, the two opposites complementing each other.”
