Stella McCartney certainly has no need of boasting family credentials, yet her Pre-Fall collection had a rather touching connection with her personal history. “While I was working on it, my dad and the Beatles relaunched the Yellow Submarine movie in a higher quality, and I went to a screening with my dad,” she said, referring to the 50th anniversary of the extraordinary animation movie. “I saw it with completely fresh eyes and I was blown away by the messaging, like ‘All Together Now’ and ‘All You Need Is Love.’ Modern, ahead of their time, these four young men. I was so inspired.” Well, if there’s a designer who doesn’t have to ask for permission to work on that legacy, it’s definitely her.
Feeling, as she explained, that it was time to “come at that family heritage with a different point of view,” McCartney worked on a series of pieces at the heart of the collection directly inspired by Yellow Submarine’s visuals. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds pyrotechnics were rendered as colorful patchwork-printed dancers, happily shimmying on fluid silk jacquard shirts; a sensational fur-free-fur Technicolor coat boasted on the back a jacquard portrait of the Fab Four in their marching uniforms. What mostly intrigued McCartney, though, was the modernity of the movie’s and lyrics’ message; she had sweaters embroidered with All Together Now in multiple languages: “I think it’s so relevant to now, bringing the world together, the people together, breaking down barriers,” she said. “It’s a political conversation, too; we can bring that back to the forefront in a way.”
The whole collection was tinged with a personal, almost emotional feel; the designer also mined her parents’ fashion archive for inspiration. She did it with a delicate, loving hand. Linda McCartney’s distinctive ’70s, romantic style was referenced in long, flowing dresses in silk georgette with billowing sleeves and in a gorgeous ankle-grazing circle skirt with matching cape-shirt in flame red plissé. Paul McCartney’s flair for country style was celebrated in a series of quintessentially British, neatly tailored yet utilitarian coats in beautiful tweeds and Prince of Wales wools. A trenchcoat in dry checked wool was double-breasted and classic at the front, while the back boasted a swinging play of pleats; it summarized the constant conversation between masculine and feminine inherent to Stella McCartney’s style vocabulary, a dichotomy smartly blended into a thoughtful, modern combination of glamour and ease.
