Fashion

Twenty years after their first partnership—H&M’s second-ever designer collaboration—Stella McCartney returns with a new collection that lands on 7 May in selected stores across the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, as well as online, marking a homecoming of sorts for a relationship that helped define the early era of high-low fashion.

Rather than a quiet reboot, this release reads as a two-decade victory lap and a forward-looking statement rolled into one, with McCartney combing through her house’s 25-year history to pull early archive energy—bejewelled prints, slogan tops, and a white “Rock Royalty” mini tee first worn to the 1999 Met Gala—and pairing it with current signatures such as oversized shirting, sweeping trenches, and sharp grey melange suiting.

A double-breasted pinstripe jacket and pleated oversized trousers sit beside a long white gown with a cape sleeve that loops into the hem, while a polka dot chiffon mini dress in bold red, mesh pieces printed with snakes and cherries, and a cropped bomber in a snakeskin finish (its coated material made partly from recycled vegetable oil and agricultural crops like straw) round out a collection that refuses to play it safe.

Materials drive the narrative as much as the silhouettes like recycled glass beads—80% post-consumer—decorate a semi-sheer lace mini dress and matching leggings, organic cottons include ROC™ certified cotton requiring farmers to improve soil, animal welfare, and worker fairness, all wool meets the Responsible Wool Standard, and coated fabrics draw on industrial corn and recycled vegetable oil. Accessories arrive with unusual force, including six bag styles ranging from a beige organic cotton logo tote and a bright red mesh version to a deep chocolate bag with Falabella chain edging, while chain-detail loafers, necklaces, and earrings use recycled metal and a white patent slingback carries McCartney’s signature sculptural curved heel.

The campaign, shot by Sam Rock in London and starring Renee Rapp, Angelina Kendall, and Adwoa Aboah, carries the tagline &Stella—reworked into &Here &Now &Me &You—and channels a mood that Stella McCartney herself sums up as playful, strong, sparkling, joyful, and refined, a description the collection delivers in full.

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Images: Supplied & Feature Image: Supplied