{"id":517864,"date":"2026-03-06T09:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T09:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/517864\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T09:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T09:25:08","slug":"stella-mccartney-paris-show-is-a-whistle-stop-tour-of-her-life-stella-mccartney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/517864\/","title":{"rendered":"Stella McCartney Paris show is a whistle-stop tour of her life | Stella McCartney"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking after her show at Paris fashion week<\/a>, the British designer Stella McCartney marked 25 years in the industry by letting slip that she was to receive the most prestigious French accolade, the L\u00e9gion d\u2019honneur, on Thursday \u2013 and making a jumper using yeast.<\/p>\n

Never mind that she has not turned a profit since 2017<\/a>. The fashion designer knows how to turn a show into a moment, opening with \u201csome equine therapy\u201d in the form of a dozen dancing horses to mark the Chinese year of the horse, and closing it with a vest that said \u201cMy dad\u2019s a rock star\u201d in front of a grinning Paul McCartney who sat front row next to Oprah Winfrey.<\/p>\n

Paul McCartney attends his daughter\u2019s PFW show Photograph: Tom Nicholson\/AP<\/p>\n

The collection was a whistle-stop tour of McCartney\u2019s life. Fishermen knits were a nod to a childhood spent on the Mull of Kintyre; loose low-rise denim (recycled, of course) to being a teenager in west London; and jewel-coloured stirrup leggings to interning at Christian Lacroix. The finale vest was a nod to the 1999 \u201crock royalty\u201d one she wore to the Met Gala. \u201cI was trying to think who I could get to wear [it] but I think I\u2019m one of the very few, quite frankly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In a flat luxury market, there are fears her brand could run out of money by 2028. But McCartney was more keen to press that she was one of the few women designing for women, and that her label has never used leather, feathers, fur or animal skins. In fairness, while almost every show nods in some way towards \u201csustainability\u201d these days, only McCartney has turned brewed protein into knitwear.<\/p>\n

In another industry milestone, Pieter Mulier took his final bow at Ala\u00efa on Wednesday night, a quiet moment that carried some weight coming shortly before he steps into one of fashion\u2019s most scrutinised jobs: replacing Donatella at Versace.<\/p>\n

Oprah Winfrey arrives to attend Stella McCartney\u2019s show Photograph: St\u00e9phane Mah\u00e9\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Asked if he was ready for the job, the softly spoken Belgian who, before joining Ala\u00efa in 2021 had never run a fashion house, said \u201cnot yet\u201d, before describing his final show as emotional for his team \u201cbecause the news [of my departure] went out quite early\u201d.<\/p>\n

Versace\u2019s revolving door has become a storyline that has gripped the industry like the latest airport thriller. The previous designer, Dario Vitale, replaced Donatella\u2019s gilt and bustiers with 80s hipsterism and was fired after 8 months.<\/p>\n

Versace was bought by the Prada group in December, and is betting big on Mulier\u2019s sculptural, anti-trend approach, which couldn\u2019t be more different to Vitale. Only his exacting accessories \u2013 including his perforated ballet flats, widely copied by the high street and the most searched for accessory in 2024 on shopping platform Lyst \u2013 went mainstream. Here he applied this technique to stilettos.<\/p>\n

Ala\u00efa is not the biggest fashion house, nor is it the most well known, but in an industry scrambling for relevance, it is beloved. Mulier\u2019s final collection, as ever inspired by the late Azzedine Ala\u00efa , who was known as the \u201cking of cling\u201d, showed stretch knit dresses moulded to the body like second skin, skirts and tops in pliable knits, and a handful of haute hooded dresses as worn by Grace Jones in A View to a Kill.<\/p>\n

As worn by Michella Obama and Rihanna, who revealed her pregnancy at the 2023 Superbowl half-time show in a cherry red jumpsuit, Ala\u00efa\u2019s most famous cultural touchstone is probably Alicia Silverstone\u2019s character in Clueless, Cher, whose mugger clapback \u2013 \u201cThis is an Ala\u00efa! It\u2019s like a totally important designer!\u201d \u2013 turned one of the last great couturiers of the 20th century into a semi-household name.<\/p>\n

In a nice touch, Silverstone was on the front row.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking after her show at Paris fashion week, the British designer Stella McCartney marked 25 years in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-517864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}