Into Stella

When Paul and Linda McCartney welcomed their second child into the world in 1971, they named her Stella, for Linda’s grandmother, and Nina, one of Linda’s college chums. “Stella Nina means star girl,” Sir Paul explains by telephone from his home in the Hamptons. “And she is.” Indeed, she is. This month, Stella Nina McCartney is kicking off the 20th anniversary celebrations of her brand – which she launched in 2001, aged 29. In those two decades, Stella, a lifelong vegetarian, has grown from being considered the industry kook for refusing to use leather and animal fur, to becoming a driving force for sustainable and conscious fashion. All as well as marrying the love of her life, the creative brand consultant Alasdhair Willis, in 2003, and with him raising their four children, who carry on the McCartney family’s vegetarianism.

“Twenty years – that’s a big number,” she says, in genuine disbelief, over Zoom. She looks like a grown-up teenager, barefoot and makeup free, wearing one of her signature jumpsuits in sand-coloured organic cotton. “I didn’t even notice the time flying,” she says. “I have such high hopes and aggressive goals for change that time passes me by. But, obviously, time is critical. There’s lots to be done.” Like getting fashion to take circularity – the reuse or recycling of garments and accessories – seriously. After selling a stake of her company to LVMH last year, she now serves as sustainability whisperer to chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault. “To be the personal adviser to Mr Arnault on sustainability? That can make meaningful change,” she says. “I feel very privileged to have that opportunity.”

How Stella got to this point of unmatched power and influence in the world of fashion is, to steal from her Beatles father,