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Stella McCartney: Increasingly Sophisticated, with a Sure Hand
By: Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber-FWD
Mar 14, 2002/ FWD/ --- Last season Stella McCartney got a critical lambasting from her
fellow British critics for her debut.
This season, the most influential designer of this generation, Giorgio Armani, turned up
to see what Stella could do.
And, like most of us, he came away impressed.
The contrast between seasons was striking in many other ways.
Last October Stella staged her collection in a low-ceiling mock nightclub; today she sent her
models underneath the glass roof of the splendid Ecole des Beaux Arts.
Instead of darkness and neon, we had white walls and light, and the collection was
correspondingly more optimistic and far prettier.
McCartney's opening idea was a soft military, where her troops wore padded jackets and
parkas with ragged seams over satin pencil pants or leggings.
She reworked sweatshirts and cable sweaters, cleverly splitting the hood with a zip and
using it like a shoulder pad.
It was tricky-looking but it worked.
Stella's tailoring was also more polished, and her sure hand showed best in two overcoats
with double satin lapels, which were casual yet chic, and both uptown- and downtown-appropriate.
But it wasn't all amazing -- one was just beginning to think that those dresses made of silk
sashes might have been edited out when Stella hit you with a fantastic black suit.
Composed of a little curvy jacket and a knee-length skirt seemingly made of loose scarves,
it was easily one of the best looks of the Paris season.
Dedicated to her mum, family and George Harrison, the show had a poignant opening as the
first lines of "Something" came out of the speakers.
Her dad Paul gave a standing ovation, as did Armani, who sat beside the former Beatle in
the front row.
"I thought the collection was a lot of fun yet also sophisticated due to the way she used
English references and style. And I thought some of suits were quite simply beautiful,"
Armani, a man well-known for not giving idle compliments, told FWD.
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