Family might be her driving force, but McCartney has been fuelling the green fashion movement herself for decades. Having founded her eponymous fashion brand in 2001, the Central Saint Martins graduate’s designs have been cruelty-free from day one. She has transformed the landscape of luxury fashion in the process, proving that style and eco-consciousness can coexist. “No one thought I would be successful because I didn’t use leather, fur or feathers ... I was called an eco-weirdo!” she tells Tatler in an email interview.

But over the past 25 years, the designer has pioneered an array of game-changing innovations, from launching the first spider-silk garment in 2017 and releasing the first vegan Adidas Stan Smiths in 2018 to making the world’s first commercially available Mylo handbag in 2022 and releasing the world’s first close-the-loop parka in Econyl yarn in 2023.

Read more: Is Alternative Leather the Future of the Fashion Industry?

Alongside the cheerful presentations—at the winter 2023 show, horses joined the models on the catwalk, while the summer 2024 show was presented as a market displaying all sustainable suppliers—attendees at every Stella show receive an eco fact-sheet that tracks all the designer’s commitments and latest practices; it’s getting longer and more impressive with each season.

For winter 2024, McCartney moodboarded her parents’ shared wardrobe and crafted a collection that embodies her brand’s feminine-meets-masculine DNA and also makes women feel good.

One standout piece is a new version of the Falabella bag in regenerative cotton bouclé denim, caged in repurposed deadstock chains, embellished with lead-free crystal and painted with Airlite—a pioneering technology that actively purifies the air. McCartney is also obsessed with a beautiful cruelty-free “croc” trench made from Uppeal, an apple-based vegan leather alternative, as well as a white trench crafted from Yatay B, a material made from agricultural waste and recycled materials. “Who else can say they are creating such desirable, sustainable pieces like this, season after season?” McCartney asks. “We work hard here at Stella to ensure we only work with the most elevated, most ethical suppliers.”

The British designer is particularly proud of the Falabella bag. The slouchy faux-leather tote with a sleek silver-chain trim style is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. “When I started out, nobody believed that you couldhave a vegan designer luxury bag with all the same levels of craftsmanship, quality and desirability as a leather product, but I think we can safely say at this point that we have proven them wrong,” McCartney says. “It makes me incredibly proud to see a new generation of Stella women and people discovering the Falabella now, which really just shows that beautiful designs truly are ageless and timeless. That is true sustainability to me.”

This determination to drive change has also manifested in McCartney’s work beyond the runway. SOS Fund, a US$200 million investment initiative that she co-founded in 2022 with venture capital firm Collaborative Fund, is bringing planet-saving technologies out of the lab and into the mainstream.

“New innovative developments can be challenging as they don’t just happen overnight, but I find it incredibly rewarding, because when it works, and there’s a breakthrough, there’s no better feeling,” she says. One such business it helped bring to market is Mirum, a plantbased and plastic-free vegan alternative to leather that McCartney uses in collections.

Some of the brand’s other green milestones this year alone include introducing the world’s first luxury garments crafted from Kelsun, a seaweed-based yarn; launching a grape-based leather alternative with champagne brand Veuve Clicquot; and releasing the world’s first biologically recycled—degraded by microorganisms, not chemicals—garments with Protein Evolution.

“I really challenge myself and my team here at Stella to continuously search for and work with new alternative materials that are kinder to Mother Earth and the animals ... which is not bloody easy! What most people don’t realise is that the process from idea to product often takes years, and a huge amount of investment,” she says. “We can’t do it alone, which is why I am so transparent about the innovations we use and the innovators we work with. I want other brands to follow in our footsteps so that these next-gen material pioneers can get the support they need in order to survive and create real change in our industry.”

In 2019, McCartney was appointed as a special advisor on sustainability to Bernard Arnault, the CEO of the world’s biggest luxury conglomerate, LVMH. “With everything I do, I want to share what I’ve learned and show others that it is possible,” she says. “LVMH is ready to start talking seriously about sustainability and I think it means that the world of fashion had better wake up and take notice because this is no longer a trend. This is the future of fashion. I genuinely feel that Bernard Arnault is absolutely ready for the conversation, and the magnitude of what we could do together is quite game-changing. These things don’t happen overnight, but I know the opportunity is there and I couldn’t be more excited, more ready and more equipped to deliver on that privilege.”

McCartney, who received the accolade of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) from King Charles III in 2023, attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai last year, where she presented an immersive exhibit in the form of a sustainable market. “There have been a lot of positive conversations for naturepositive fashion in Dubai, but the next step is to accelerate action, and this should be everyone’s focus. This is why my attendance at COP felt so important,” says McCartney.

“I want to be in the room with policymakers and heads of state who have the influence to make change.”

The designer remains steadfast in her mission to revolutionise the industry, one sustainable innovation at a time, and is optimistic that meaningful change is not far away. “In the years to come, I think we’ll start seeing an acceleration in sustainable fabrics moving from prototype phase to being used commercially; it’s just taken time because scaling up technologies to enable mass production is difficult. There is an appetite from the consumer to invest in alternative materials,” she tells Tatler. “Ultimately, I have always designed with the idea in mind that consumers should never have to compromise what they want for the sustainability our planet needs. A better way is possible.”

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