Follow The Leader

When Stella McCartney launched her brand almost 20 years ago, her sustainable business model was dismissed. Now, as eco-fashion finally goes mainstream, Grace O’Neill talks next steps with the industry’s enduring game-changer

- Grace O’Neill

STELLA McCARTNEY is a busy woman. Granted, we’re all busy, but she’s the kind of busy that casts one’s own busyness in an embarrassingly feeble light. So busy, in fact, that there were real fears this piece wouldn’t come together at all.

We were trying to reach her at a hugely inopportune moment: right in the midst of staging her S/S 2020 show, a spectacular in the Opéra Garnier, her chosen venue since joining the Paris fashion week schedule in 2001. After the show, she announced the appointment of a new chief executive officer in Gabriele Maggio and jetted to Asia for a monthlong tour. Earlier this year she launched a capsule collection inspired by The Beatles, called All Together Now; partnered with Google to tackle reducing the use of cotton and viscose; and became LVMH’s special advisor on sustainability after the conglomerate invested an undisclosed sum into her label. All the while running an estimated $490 million-a-year business, continuing to design collections for adidas and leading the charge as the fashion industry’s guiding light on responsible design and manufacturing. As we said, busy.