There’s a lot to say about what Stella McCartney got up to in London on November 10. During the day, she was previewing her debut menswear collection and her Pre-Spring 2017 womenswear at a Methodist chapel she’d hired just across the street from the Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles recorded their album of the same name in 1969. She mentioned, in passing, that she was going to have “a party” at the studios later. Turned out, it was more of a mini-Glastonbury of a night, with DJ sets and live performances on two stages from the Beastie Boys, Beth Ditto, Neneh Cherry, Professor Green, Sharleen Spiteri, and more. A very relaxed, very British-music and fashion-friends-and-family affair it was.
This is the way Stella rolls these days. Springing surprise happenings on people, as she did in Paris last month, rehearsing models to break into a dance routine at the end of her runway show, is one of McCartney’s humanizing talents. Making fashion fun to be around, less icy, less pretentiously distant, and part of normal life is essential to her subliminal brand value. This time the models were standing around with everyone else, eating pizza served from Stella McCartney boxes.
But to the clothes. Earlier in the day, McCartney was talking about the menswear presentation. “It’s something I started thinking about eleven years ago, when I launched the Adidas collection and a guy came up to me and said, ‘Would you do that for men?’ ” she said. “That definitely planted a seed.” Her choice of location begged the obvious question: How much of the collection was related to the influence of her father, Sir Paul McCartney? Answer: bits and pieces, but not all that much. She pointed to a blue shirt embroidered with swallows. “It was mum’s, but then I saw a picture of dad wearing it.” A blue organic denim embroidered shirt was inspired by an earlier Beatles-era snap. “It was more the Maharishi phase. He was wearing it over a formal English shirt.” Another obvious question: Did her husband Alasdhair Willis have any input? “No,” she laughed, though Willis did wear her black boxy-jacketed suit with draped tailored cargo pants to her last show. “We keep our work separate! But I want Al to wear it, my dad to want to wear it, my sons, and my friends.” On offer: everything from short mackintosh raincoats and Prince of Wales check overcoats, to workwear carpenter pants, to spoof football scarves and nu-ravey Members and Non Members Only slogan T-shirts.
