Stella: Reassuringly inexpensive

Stella McCartney’s H&M collection is the latest sell-out high street diffusion range, and her third sports range for Adidas is hot on its heels, but are they worthy of their designer label? Charlotte Howells goes shopping

By Charlotte Howells

Due to an extended liaison with my snooze button, I am an hour and a half late for my long-awaited 9am shopping date. Luckily when I arrive in the city centre, despite being unceremoniously stood up, the object of my affection is still in attendance: Stella McCartney’s new range for H&M.

Unlike London, where gaggles of eager shoppers clambered to bag their own piece of cut-price McCartney, the Cardiff Store is eerily quiet when I arrive at 10.30. Although the chaos of London is missing, there is an evident buzz around the collection, as women quickly collect armfuls to cart to the changing rooms. The assistants, in their Stella promo shirts, are also excitedly talking through mental shopping sprees: “I want the bikini,” says one, despite the relentlessly falling rain outside.

Priced between £29.99 and £99.99, the range is around a tenth of the price of what you would usually expect to pay for a McCartney design. The tuxedo-style suit comes in at £80, compared with £800 for a bespoke Stella suit. The appeal of the range is that the clothes carry all the trademarks of her ready-to-wear ranges. A soft, muted palate of teals, jades and gunmetal greys make up the range of silky wrap dresses, oversized jumpers and masculine cut suits. The beautiful cut Рthe clothes magically drape and cling in a way far more flattering than you would expect, and high quality fabric (think wool and silk as opposed to polyester) Рmakes these designs feel luxurious beyond their price tag. Stella herself admits to being surprised at the quality of the finished pieces, claiming in an interview with the Sunday Times that it is impossible to tell they are in fact high street, rather than designer.

This isn’t her first foray into the mass market: she has also worked with Adidas to produce gym clothes worthy of the catwalk. This is, however, the first time designs comparable to those she sends down the runway are available for high street prices. McCartney is the latest designer to design clothes for the high street; last year H&M teamed up with Karl Lagerfield, a range that sold out within days. For designers who are accustomed to having their designs copied in high street stores, it’s a way to cash in on shoppers’ new affinity for bargain catwalk fashion and design for a market which wouldn’t otherwise have access to designer collections. Debenhams have long featured diffusion ranges, although the quality of many is dubious and none have had the hype that has led up to H&M’s designer collaborations

Although reportedly a sell out, it seems that not everyone was buying for themselves: only hours after the range went on sale, there are 145 items for sale when I searched for “Stella McCartney H&M” on ebay. The next morning, there are nearly 400. But despite many buyers’ entrepreneurial intentions, the range was ultimately hailed as a success, and the speed-buying chaos that accompanied its launch meant the collaboration made national news on the eve of its release.

In contrast, her sports range for Adidas has been quietly reinventing work-out wear for three years. Fashionable sportswear? Surely an oxymoron if there ever was one. Although they both made clothes, the fashion and sports industries were previously more divorced than Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. The closest sportswear got to style was inventive designs for the flamboyant Williams sisters to play tennis in.

Along with Yohji Yamamoto’s Y-3 range, and Alexander McQueen’s collaboration with Puma, Stella McCartney is heading a sporting revolution. Fashion and sport finally get to hold hands, and what a coupling it is. Before we were forced to choose between two equally unflattering alternatives: the baggy, shapeless, soulless kit, or the too-tight, garish lycra ensemble. Now we can have flattering, functional and downright beautiful, and all just to sweat in. The colours are ones we actually want to be seen in, and with enticing names like calypso (a peachy pink), orchid and dusty rose, the clothes have much more in common with the catwalk than the treadmill. Like her H&M range, the cut and shape of the designs, along with the combinations of muted shades and attention to detail, clearly mark them as Stella creations.

Yes, both ranges are ultimately there to make money, but you genuinely feel you’re getting something worthy of a designer label. Some of the ‘Designers at Debenhams’ range include plain black T-shirts with the designer’s name tackily emblazoned in diamante across the front; hardly something I can see the designer themselves wearing. So thank you Ms McCartney for not saving all your best designs for the catwalk, and showing us that your style doesn’t just look good on celebs, it works on us too.

The Stella McCartney label at H&M reads, “Take me home, put me on, and feel good!” and as I try on the much-hyped trademark trouser suit, I have to admit, I do feel good. Unlike Karl Lagerfield’s controversial collaboration last year, where he was outraged that his clothes were being sold in larger sizes, all of the range seems to be universally flattering (with the possible exception of the drainpipe zip-bottom jeans). If clothes make you feel good, they should be celebrated, whatever the label.