It seems highly intentional that Stella McCartney is releasing this pre-fall collection today, in the midst of the climate change conference COP 28. Several days ago in Dubai the designer spoke about the enormous impact on the planet of the fashion business, as the world’s second biggest polluter after the oil industry.
“If somebody watches this and they realize that 100 million animals are killed a year, if even one person here can digest that information and think, ok, my next purchase is going to be non-leather—you’ve got to have hope that every piece of information that people are given can [help them] be conscious in their consumption,” she said.
McCartney has built a “vegetarian company,” meaning she hasn’t used fur, leather, or feathers since she launched her brand in 2001, and has stayed at the forefront of innovations around alternative materials. This season, she’s touting BioPuff, a down replacement made from the bulrushes that grown in regenerative wetlands, and thus have some of the same properties as feathers—the material is not just lightweight and fluffy, but also water-repellant, and she’s using it for a padded version of her best-selling Falabella bag.
Birds, in turn, are one the collection’s motifs. The trio of party looks that open the lookbook are trimmed in pleated and shredded tulle that has the whimsical, weightless quality of real plumes, and several looks later the high slit of full skirt in bright yellow is lined in organza cut to look like authentic feathers. Monochrome tiger stripes on a shaggy wool coat—responsibly sourced, her press materials point out, like 93% of the collection—keeps her larger message about the sanctity of animal life, and its interconnectedness with ours as humans, going.
Pre-fall collections tend to be full of sartorial workhorses, so rounding out the lineup are McCartney’s familiar sharp suits, and slinky knit separates, the former as masculine as the latter are feminine and sexy. A double-breasted jacket in a classic check worn over a lilac lace-edged slip dress brings the two stories together.
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