Stella McCartney was one of several designers who enjoyed a homecoming moment at British Vogue’s Forces of Fashion event on Saturday, held at Central Saint Martins (John Galliano, Christopher Kane, Conner Ives and Feben being the others). The designer graduated from the prestigious fashion school, then located in Charing Cross, back in 1995. “I wanted to make clothes that I wanted to wear, and I think that was quite novel at that time,” McCartney told Vogue’s Chioma Nnadi of her graduate show. Even back then, she managed to pull together quite the cast, with Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Yasmin Le Bon all walking the show. “My girlfriends were these incredible supermodels; they all wanted to support a friend, but also British fashion and student fashion,” the designer recalled, before joking: “So I know I’m the first nepo baby, I’m sorry!”
At just 25, the designer became the creative director of Chloé, following in the footsteps of Karl Lagerfeld, who commented that the French fashion house had appointed a big name “in music, not fashion.” That didn’t faze McCartney, though. “I think I was really naive,” McCartney reflected. “Honestly it sounds ridiculous now, I was like, nobody will notice if I take this job because Chloé was not a cool house [at the time].” Of course, people did take notice, with McCartney’s Noughties Chloé designs still being extremely covetable today. How did it feel to prove the critics wrong? “I’m still proving people wrong,” she replied. “It’s always been the case of feeling like I had to prove myself.”