Speaking after her show at Paris fashion week, the British designer Stella McCartney marked 25 years in the industry by letting slip that she was to receive the most prestigious French accolade, the Légion d’honneur, on Thursday – and making a jumper using yeast.
Never mind that she has not turned a profit since 2017. The fashion designer knows how to turn a show into a moment, opening with “some equine therapy” in the form of a dozen dancing horses to mark the Chinese year of the horse, and closing it with a vest that said “My dad’s a rock star” in front of a grinning Paul McCartney who sat front row next to Oprah Winfrey.
The collection was a whistle-stop tour of McCartney’s life. Fishermen knits were a nod to a childhood spent on the Mull of Kintyre; loose low-rise denim (recycled, of course) to being a teenager in west London; and jewel-coloured stirrup leggings to interning at Christian Lacroix. The finale vest was a nod to the 1999 “rock royalty” one she wore to the Met Gala. “I was trying to think who I could get to wear [it] but I think I’m one of the very few, quite frankly,” she said.
In a flat luxury market, there are fears her brand could run out of money by 2028. But McCartney was more keen to press that she was one of the few women designing for women, and that her label has never used leather, feathers, fur or animal skins. In fairness, while almost every show nods in some way towards “sustainability” these days, only McCartney has turned brewed protein into knitwear.
In another industry milestone, Pieter Mulier took his final bow at Alaïa on Wednesday night, a quiet moment that carried some weight coming shortly before he steps into one of fashion’s most scrutinised jobs: replacing Donatella at Versace.
Asked if he was ready for the job, the softly spoken Belgian who, before joining Alaïa in 2021 had never run a fashion house, said “not yet”, before describing his final show as emotional for his team “because the news [of my departure] went out quite early”.
Versace’s revolving door has become a storyline that has gripped the industry like the latest airport thriller. The previous designer, Dario Vitale, replaced Donatella’s gilt and bustiers with 80s hipsterism and was fired after 8 months.
Versace was bought by the Prada group in December, and is betting big on Mulier’s sculptural, anti-trend approach, which couldn’t be more different to Vitale. Only his exacting accessories – including his perforated ballet flats, widely copied by the high street and the most searched for accessory in 2024 on shopping platform Lyst – went mainstream. Here he applied this technique to stilettos.
Alaïa is not the biggest fashion house, nor is it the most well known, but in an industry scrambling for relevance, it is beloved. Mulier’s final collection, as ever inspired by the late Azzedine Alaïa , who was known as the “king of cling”, showed stretch knit dresses moulded to the body like second skin, skirts and tops in pliable knits, and a handful of haute hooded dresses as worn by Grace Jones in A View to a Kill.
As worn by Michella Obama and Rihanna, who revealed her pregnancy at the 2023 Superbowl half-time show in a cherry red jumpsuit, Alaïa’s most famous cultural touchstone is probably Alicia Silverstone’s character in Clueless, Cher, whose mugger clapback – “This is an Alaïa! It’s like a totally important designer!” – turned one of the last great couturiers of the 20th century into a semi-household name.
In a nice touch, Silverstone was on the front row.
