Stella McCartney has never lacked convictions. When its eponymous brand launched 25 years ago, it became the first major luxury fashion house truly dedicated to producing environmentally friendly and cruelty-free clothing. This means no fur, animal hides, feathers or harmful processes are used, but rather innovative and sustainable day dot materials.
When he collaborated with H&M in 2005, on a sell-out collection that saw hordes of shoppers queuing outside the door, these were standards he insisted on. “I only agreed to do it if everything was sustainable,” says the designer, “obviously I was going to do it forever, but these guys didn’t have to do it… but to their credit, they continued.”
Queues for McCartney’s first collaboration with H&M in 2005
At the time, it seemed quite radical, since sustainability was at odds with the fast fashion model. But it showed what was possible and allowed McCartney to welcome a wider audience to his label. “I’m not an elitist brand; I’m the opposite,” he says. “I want people to come to Stella. I want them to be a part of Stella.”
It also became a contrast to the historically exclusive model of luxury fashion. “Very few brands can do these types of collaborations because they are super snobbish. Elitism is what keeps those brands alive, the fact that you can’t access them. People are so screwed that they want to buy it and will do anything for it.”
At Paris Fashion Week for A/W 25
Of course, elitism does no favors for McCartney’s mission, which she remains focused on as she teams up with H&M for the second time. Two decades after their first collaboration, she is the first designer invited to return. The result is a collection entirely based on recycled and organic materials. It pays homage to Stella McCartney’s archives of feminine, wearable pieces: sleek tailoring, modern denim, silky nightgowns, a touch of ’90s grunge here, a touch of glitter there. Falabella chains appear on the neckline of the ribbed tank tops and its cherry motif reinvented with eco-friendly sequins. All impressively luxurious.
“I want women (and men, and everyone else) to feel good [wearing this collection]” says McCartney. “It was mainly about making people feel better and letting them express who they are, with a costume that can be worn multiple times. I can take those pants and pair them with that t-shirt or that jacket. That’s how I came out as a designer: I made looks. “I was very aware that I wanted to offer a solution.”
Adwoa Aboah at Stella McCartney x H&M 2026
A look at the collection.
While clothes from major brands don’t typically have much resale value, this isn’t the case with H&M’s designer collaborations. Pieces created with Simone Rocha, The Vampire’s Wife and even McCartney in 2005 continue to be coveted on second-hand platforms such as Vinted and eBay. “This will hold its value. I’m a big believer in resale and investing better, because you’ll get your money back, or it can become a vintage piece,” he says.
While McCartney enjoyed revisiting some of his most iconic designs, it wasn’t nostalgia that sealed the deal for a second collaboration with H&M: it was unfinished business. “I wanted to come and do something,” he says. “I knew we could have amazing products, but I also knew I could have an informative conversation with people who wouldn’t normally be interested: a community of people who do need to know the negative impact of normal fast fashion,” McCartney pauses, before adding, “or normal luxury fashion, frankly.”
Stella McCartney x H&M
While much has changed in the conversation about ethical fashion since 2005, McCartney sees a recent regression in that progress. “I would like a more sustainable consciousness to return, because the building has already been somewhat abandoned,” he says. Indeed, with more than a billion animals still slaughtered for leather each year, and livestock farming responsible for 80 percent of the Amazon’s deforested areas – which also generates 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions – there is a long way to go. “I’m a very small brand comparatively; I can be perceived as much bigger than I am,” he says. “To see other houses that have much higher margins and more money than any business in the world not use recycled metal and not have that conversation… it’s really embarrassing.”
She says there was “a moment in fashion where everyone woke up”, with shocking movements like PETA’s ‘I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur’ campaign, which Pamela Anderson modeled in in 1997, but animal products have seen a renewed fashion. “People are bringing back exotic skins and products,” McCartney says. “Sadly, that’s how fickle humans are. I wish that anger and compassion would come back.”
It continues to work closely with pioneers of emerging materials (for example, investing in mushroom leather), but scaling up those solutions remains an obstacle. “I see innovation brands come and go. I work with them every day, but they can’t grow, they can’t reduce prices, and they go out of business. So to be able to say, ‘You’re going to get an order from H&M,’ makes me very proud.”
Stella McCartney x H&M
Stella McCartney x H&M
Indeed, McCartney is under no illusions that the broader cultural debate about sustainability is moving forward in a straight line. Part of its strategy with its second collaboration with H&M has been to expand the conversation beyond the echo chamber of like-minded people, in the form of an Insight Board. It consists of model and H&M global brand ambassador Amelia Gray, fashion editor and journalist Susie Lau, model and Gurls Talk founder Adwoa Aboah, singer, artist and activist Anitta and entrepreneur and sustainability innovator Kiara Nirghin, along with McCartney and H&M experts.
“One of the main things in choosing that group of people was not having a group of sustainable people there: having young women who have a point of view, who have a platform, who are not particularly sustainable and who understand why they are not sustainable, or what makes it uninteresting or unattractive,” McCartney says. “Normally I’m in a room of converts talking to converts; that’s not really what we’re trying to do here. I’m trying to make meaningful change.”
With an impact already so felt, it’s clear that Stella McCartney is ready to cause tidal waves.
