She Grooves. Will She Go?
From Newsweek, October 18, 1999
It's the day before the Chloe fashion show, but if head designer Stella McCartney is tense, it doesn't show. She dances around to the beat of Busta Rhymes and greets the models with an upbeat "Hello, darling!" Supermodel Amber Valletta strolls in. When asked what she likes about McCartney's designs, Valletta deadpans, "Well, I really like her dad's music." "He's not really my dad," McCartney replies. "It's just a publicity stunt to sell clothes. It took years of writing letters for him to do it." Stella McCartney can joke about her famous name now.
Two years ago, when she was hired by the Vendome conglomerate to take over at the House of Chloe, her name was all that most people knew about her. She'd had little experience, just two years of producing a small line called Stella out of her London apartment. But industry insiders underestimated both her business acumen and the fresh appeal of her ideas. Chloe sales have increased five-fold since 1997; this year Chloe has sold roughly $421.4 million worth of goods.
"Right now Chloe really exists because [the clothes] are selling," McCartney says proudly. "Many womenswear companies make the bulk of their money from the perfumes and the handbags." But in reviving Chloe, McCartney has made herself the house's hottest item--and the industry is wondering just how long she'll stay. At last week's Chloe show, there was less talk about the collection (which got middling reviews) than about rumors that Gucci chief Tom Ford is wooing McCartney for one of the design posts in the new Gucci Group conglomerate. Many observers, including top fashion editors, think Ford will take over the ready-to-wear line at Yves Saint Laurent and McCartney will go to Gucci. McCartney dismisses the rumors, and Chloe president Ralph Toledano insists that she's not going anywhere. "They said she would be gone by the end of September," he says. "Where is she? Downstairs, designing clothes." Still, Ford's seat at the Chloe show--right next to Sir Paul--only fueled the talk of his courtship.
McCartney's seriously sexy design style would be a natural fit at Gucci. It was hardly the expected image for Chloe. Before McCartney arrived, the 47-year-old label limped along with a largely middle-aged clientele. McCartney gambled by remaking the line in her own funky, foxy image--and won. Now Chloe does brisk business at Neiman Marcus, Saks and Bergdorf's. At the Chloe boutique in Manhattan (the line's first new store in 20 years), there is a waiting list of 150 names for McCartney's hip aviator sunglasses (price: $190).
"I didn't think of the old Chloe customer [when I started]," McCartney says. "The minute you stop and think, 'Will this suit a 50-year-old woman?' you lose your design instinct. I think about what I want to wear and what my friends want to wear." Sleek, dark jeans, suits that put sex into Savile Row and hippie-luxury embroidered tops have been consistent themes in her designs going back to her student days. "This is fashion that can sell to a lot of people," says Phillip Miller, the president of Saks Fifth Avenue. That's Stella's groove--whatever house she's playing to. 