Where Stella McCartney goes, the fun follows. Last night, she presented her new collection in Elizabeth Street Garden, a green oasis in the Nolita neighborhood that has recently been threatened by development. No signs of strife yesterday, not with the live band, the statue performers, and an all-star crowd that ranged from Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn to Lorne Michaels and Peter Beard. By the looks of the empty champagne flutes everywhere, people came to party.
The designer herself was in an upbeat mood, offering this reporter a lavender margarita before she started riffing on the new collection. "Isn't it nice to get some color back into your life, and print, to just feel alive? I think fashion can be quite restraining for people." Not Stella McCarntney's fashion. With their patchworks of print and stripes, side cutouts, and insets of sunray pleats, the dresses that greeted guests at the entrance were total knockouts. Sexy, but in the best kind of offhand way. We'll be seeing them everywhere for months. "They're inspired by my mum, and by my dad, actually, and by that period of time that was free and easy and not uptight," McCartney explained.
She seemed to be making connections between generations. If those collaged dresses were a callback to her parents, the collection's superhero prints looked like they could've been a shout-out to her young children. Flat clutches in the shapes of comic book characters' masks brought out the kids in the crowd last night—the Instagrams were flying. McCartney even took a lighthearted approach to the tailoring that is such an important part of her business, working with slubby fabrics in unexpected colors, adding cutouts here as well, and perching everything on towering platform sandals. Fun all around.
