RESPONSIBLE MATERIALS: Stella McCartney
Presenting STELLA McCARTNEY Spring'23.
For Spring 2023, Stella was inspired by rewilding and rechilding – celebrating the joys of nature and youth.
Exploring the scientific work of British naturalist Miriam Rothschild launched this timely conversation on rewilding, the act of conserving ecosystems by rebalancing and diversifying wildlife, allowing Mother Earth to restore herself.
Building on this notion, Stella framed the balanced collection’s naivety, nostalgia and prettiness as a sort of ‘rechilding’ – a term she coined, playfully restoring the child within all of us through fashion.
This season’s mood-lifting palette is a dichotomy of natural shades that both calm and energise, including vivacious bursts of lime, grass, sunflower yellow, daisy and sapphire blue, and poppy red.
This is grounded by foundational neutrals, like oat, camel, navy, ink and monochromatic black and white. Bold graphicism includes prints featuring tiger and ocelot patterns, flowers grown in Stella’s countryside garden and hand-drawn depictions of British species needing preservation.
Knitwear energises the rewilding influence, with dresses and jumpers made of hand-crocheted flowers alongside this season’s Tree of Life statement sweater.
A forest-friendly viscose compact knit story includes sporty and striped banded flowing dresses, fitted to the bust and organically falling into a fringe of wide strips, while ribbed pieces are cropped close to the body and wrapped around rings.
Homespun knits reference dolls’ clothing in vests, while a graphicism comes from S-Wave monogramming on ski pieces and Fur Free Fur.
Denim is a key story with classic styles given the twist of a digital floral print of native British flowers as well as a crinkle wash for light stone-washing effect.
New styles include boxy jackets with tiger jacquards and bustier corsets.
Novelty also comes from fresh mini-skirts, low-waisted 90s jeans and judo trousers revisited as shorts, as well as an edit of washed black looks with diamond striping details.
This season, 80% of the ready-to-wear collection is crafted from responsible materials.
New innovations include an ECONYL regenerated nylon parka that can be taken back and fully recycled at the end of its life, making it fully circular.
As always, the collection is free from animal leather, feathers and fur, and features forest-friendly viscose, organic cotton, regenerated nylon, recycled polyester, linen, Refibra cotton and Humana denim made from textile waste, regenerated cashmere and RWS wool from traceable sources.
