Stella McCartney A/W 2018

Mood Board: These are busy days for Stella McCartney. The designer is currently in the midst of a much-talked about process to buy 50% of her company back from Kering, a bold move that proves how confident she is in her own brand. And why shouldn’t she be? Not only is her womenswear a strong commercial success, barely a year after debuting, her menswear line has also come together at an impressive rate. So much so, in fact, that this season she decided to show them both simultaneously. The show took place at the Opéra de Paris, on a mirrored catwalk which rendered the neo baroque decorations of Charles Garnier even more sumptuous.

Best in show: 'All is not as it seems', read the show notes. Indeed, it wasn’t. This was a collection about classics, basics and trompe-l'œil, in which corsets made their appearance (reminding us the glorious time when, in the late 90s, Stella was the queen of the corset), but this time attached to minimal sleeveless dresses. The same went for slips and sweaters and, for the boys, hoodies and coats turned out to be one and the same. Comfort was on the menu as well, mainly expressed through a vast array of sneakers, worn with everything and this time handcrafted without stitches or hooks to avoid the usage of toxic glues.

Team work: The real star of the show, though, were the final few dresses, featuring mosaic-line printings of the works of Joseph Henry Lynch. The British artist, who died in 1989, was known the 60s for his mass produced paintings of sultry women…and for the way Stanley Kubrick used them in A Clockwork Orange. It’s touches of British eccentricity like that one, paired with a realistic approach, that keep Stella McCartney’s clients coming back to her stores again and again.