Stella McCartney opened her show with a dozen horses, half white and half black, cantering in tight formation across the arena floor. Actual horses – a dozen of them, half white and half black – cantered in tight formation across the arena floor of the Société Équestre de Paris. The collection did not pretend to be anything other than what it was: personal, principled, and very much alive.
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| 🐎 12 horses opened the runway inside the Société Équestre de Paris. 🌱 93% of the collection used sustainable materials, one of the highest ratios in luxury fashion. 🧬 New textiles included yeast-protein knitwear and fermentation-based eco-leather. 👗 The collection retraced Stella McCartney’s life, from Scottish childhood to Savile Row training. 🎉 The show celebrated 25 years of the Stella McCartney brand. |
The show coincided with the Year of the Horse, and McCartney embraced the alignment with the conviction that has defined her label since its founding 25 years ago. She enlisted horse artist Jean-François Pignon, who had staged a similar equine performance at an earlier show, to return with his Camargue horses. The animals rolled on the ground, cantered in formation, and stole the attention of the front row, which included Paul McCartney, Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King, Isla Fisher, and Machine Gun Kelly.
McCartney has spent 25 years making the same argument: fashion does not need to kill animals or destroy the planet to be beautiful or profitable. The Fall 2026 collection made this argument with numbers. Ninety-three percent of the materials used were sustainable. The season introduced knitwear made from yeast fermentation proteins rather than wool, recycled denim produced without water waste, non-plastic sequins, lead-free crystals, and eco-leather derived from fermentation rather than animal skin or petroleum. These are not just talking points. They are manufacturing decisions made season after season.
The clothing itself drew from the full arc of McCartney’s life. McCartney described the show as beginning with her birth and surveying where she came from and where she has been. The rustic knitwear, occasionally adorned with fringe, and the crochet scarves and sweaters pointed back to her Scottish childhood. The sharply structured shoulders and nipped waists recalled her teenage internships at Christian Lacroix and Yves Saint Laurent in the 1980s. The tailoring, particularly the pieces cut in moiré, nodded to her early training under Savile Row legend Edward Sexton.
The lineup covered a wide range without losing focus. Long slip dresses with diagonally cut lace panels across the bust were paired with ladylike daywear and workmanlike collegiate polo shirts. Stirrup jeans were paired with anoraks. A roomy peacoat with an oversized martingale that dropped low on the back was paired with thigh-high boots. A shawl-collar jacket with a soft basque was paired with cargo trousers. High-necked, long-sleeved dresses appeared with and without handkerchief peplum details. A liquid silver, sequined halter top was paired with immaculately tailored black slacks.
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The tension between the masculine and the feminine ran throughout the collection. So did a playful self-awareness, most evident in the final look: a tank top that read, “My dad is a rock star.” It closed the show with a wink. Yet, the lineup was not sentimental. Power dressing emerged as a clear theme: structured and authoritative, yet aware of the broader mood of runways worldwide this season.
What sets McCartney apart from designers who mention sustainability in press releases is that she has made it a fundamental aspect of her brand. Certified, responsibly sourced textiles are not a seasonal addition – they are the baseline. A plastic-free paillette dress with a bold silhouette that stood out under the arena lights showed that the constraints of sustainable production have not limited her aesthetic ambitions. In fact, the limitations have sharpened them.
The horses, the clothes, the guests, and the anniversary all added up to a show that knew exactly what it wanted to say and said it without excess.
