Stella McCartney is tough. Not tough as in thick-skinned or hard, but tough as in fierce and determined. I imagine some people are quite taken aback by her single-minded attention to detail when they first meet her. Indeed, the 45-year-old fashion designer would come across as a somewhat inscrutable head girl if her vision wasn’t delivered in such an entertaining and pleasingly non-judgmental way.
When you have been on the ethical front line as long as McCartney has, you’ve got to know your stuff. I have known her on and off for more than 15 years, and I like her. She’s fun to spend time with. She’s the fashion equivalent of a science nerd, which I find endearing — as academic as she is creative. It’s rare to meet a famous person on a lifelong crusade to “do the right thing”, who has all the facts and stats in their head, as she does. As she puts it, she doesn’t “like to bullshit” her way through anything.
It must be exhausting, I say, when I meet her for this interview, to be so, well, good all the time. I’m exhausted just rattling through the list of projects the mother of four gives her time, money and support to. There is the White Ribbon campaign to stop violence against women, in partnership with the Kering Foundation (Kering is the parent company of the label); her work with breast-cancer causes (her mum, Linda, died of breast cancer in 1998), including designing a post double-mastectomy bra, the proceeds of which go to the Linda McCartney Foundation in the UK and other charities around the world; her new project recycling ocean plastic to make luxury accessories; her determination to develop replacement materials for fur and leather (she has never used either in any of her clothes or accessories); and Meat Free Monday (launched in 2009 with her sister, Mary, and father, Paul), an environmental charity that raises awareness of the ruinous processes arising from meat farming.
It would make me feel defensive and panicky to be responsible for such a “good karma” portfolio as well as the day job of running a successful global brand, including a recently launched menswear collection. You must be very driven, I say.
McCartney — OBE, no less (she was awarded it in 2013 for services to fashion) — considers this for a moment. “I am,” she says. “It’s funny, because those kind of words are trigger words for women, aren’t they? People say ‘Oh, your name’s Stella Steel, isn’t it?” and I immediately think, ‘Oh, no, that’s not a compliment.’ But if I were a man, I would be, like ‘Hi, I’m Steven Steel, drop the mic!’ I mean, it is allowed for a woman to be successful, driven, to see the potential of everything they do at work and home, to work hard.”
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She is nervous of doing interviews, which makes her understandably protective and guarded in conversation. Even she must be bored — as am I — with reading the famous story of her 1995 graduation show, which starred her friends Kate Moss et al, because family fame becomes irrelevant when you have turned a profit for the brands you have been at the helm of, and laid down an impressive ethical footprint.
It occurs to me that she has spent a lifetime making up for being born into the privileged and wealthy McCartney family. David Bowie turning up for dinner, all manner of rock’n’roll heroes tripping through Paul and Linda’s organic farmhouse in Scotland — but it’s more complicated than that. She is one of five children in total, with two full siblings, older sister Mary, and younger brother James. She has three sisters: Heather, whom Paul adopted at the age of six, and Beatrice, now 14, whose mum is Heather Mills.
“I don’t feel guilty,” she says. “I think I am trying to do the best with what I’ve been blessed with. I certainly don’t take it for granted. We all question why we’re born into the family we’re born into. My parents made their success, they didn’t inherit it, so this is a recent thing for us. Watching them, though, showed me that hard work pays off.”
These days, she is an award-winning designer credited with ushering in a new era of effortless, fluid, easy-to-wear style, first at Chloé, where she started in 1997, and then at her own label, founded in 2001. In fashion terms, she defines a modern look: wearable, tailored femininity. Her clothes have luxury price points. It annoys me that she is constantly asked to defend this. I mean, cars, art, even gadgets don’t come under the same scrutiny as expensive clothes. “I can understand why people think it,” McCartney says, “but I believe in keeping a certain quality in fashion, something long-term. I am not a fan of fast fashion, I look at staying power. I try to consider the future of the garment when I design it.”
In the flesh, McCartney, a delicate strawberry blonde who wears her own brand top-to-toe, is a curious combination of her mum’s creative thinking and what I would describe as an almost mathematical attention to detail. If you want stories of her famous childhood, then listen to her excellent but measured Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4. I think it’s more useful here to focus on McCartney as a woman of our time. Her relentless commitment to what she believes in is a template for anyone demanding a career on their own terms that still delivers financial success.
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“I just don’t see the point of doing anything without trying to make a difference,” she says. “I grew up in a certain way, with all the glamour and celebrity, I’ve seen it from day one and I know that it is not what makes people important. You have to have something more in you, on an honest and meaningful level, if you want people to take you into their hearts for a longer period than when you are just in their line of sight.
“I guess I would say I’m a perfectionist, and it is not something that serves me well all the time, but I have an attention to detail in everything I do. I am an information-driven human being. I am not preaching, though, because I am not perfect — I’m well aware of that. I do trip up, because the landscape I work in is not always stable, and I don’t want to push things on people. But I wouldn’t even be able to have these conversations if I wasn’t succeeding on a business level.”
McCartney spent her thirties setting up her business and starting a family. She has four children — Miller, 12, Bailey, 10, Beckett, 9, and Reiley, 6 — with her husband, Alasdhair Willis, the creative director of Hunter; they met 16 years ago and celebrate their 14th wedding anniversary later this month. Family life is spent in Notting Hill or their country home in the Cotswolds.
“I wake up early, though not through wanting to, and do the school run every morning. I want to see the kids and be part of all that. Then I go to work and try to fit in a bit of exercise every now and again. Yoga sometimes,” she says when I ask her to describe her day. “I’m a list-maker and a good delegator of duties. As you get older, and the kids get older, everything escalates and you are constantly thinking about what is coming up next. I’m not particularly chilled, even though I like to think I am. There is always something going on for us. Alasdhair is a great dad, we share everything and our attitude is to just get stuck in.”
I ask who’s on the WhatsApp group chats on her phone and she says mostly school mums, but that her 1990s tribe are still together. “We just don’t go out so much now,” she laughs. It’s a shame people don’t always see McCartney’s more playful side, which bubbles just under the surface, but then, perhaps, she wouldn’t be taken so seriously. Anyway, it is there, and as we head off to collect kids from various playdates, she gives me an impromptu hug, relieved the interview is over.
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“Have fun,” I say. She glances back as she heads out the door. “Will do,” she replies. “Just don’t make me sound like an arsehole!”
Opening image: Photograph: Frederike Helwig. Hair: Lewis Pallett At Eighteen Management using Umberto Giannini. Make-up: janebradleymakeup.com. Using Giorgio Armani Beauty