TOKYO — A freshly minted Order of the British Empire in her possession, it seems only fitting that Stella McCartney is acting as an ambassador of sorts on her whirlwind four-day trip through Asia, which she kicked off with a party at the British Embassy here on Monday and will wrap up today in Hong Kong with another presentation of her fall collection. McCartney is on a mission to boost her brand’s profile in Japan and China, where it’s seeing double-digit sales growth, and get to know the region better. Between Tokyo and Hong Kong, she made her first trip to Mainland China, where she feted a new flagship in Beijing, hosted a black-tie dinner in Shanghai on Thursday night and spoke to fashion students at Donghua University.
With her name emblazoned across the stage in gold inflatable letters, McCartney greeted the audience at the university with a well-received “ni hao” and spoke to the students about her own fashion education at Central Saint Martins, the challenge of working in a responsible and sustainable way within the fashion industry and work-life balance.
The designer seemed touched by the efforts of students, many of whom posed their questions in halting English.
“It was something I really wanted to do. I thought if I was going to experience China for the first time, I really wanted to go and visit a fashion college and I was really happy and excited to do that,” McCartney said.
The evening’s black-tie festivities promised “dinner and a show” in the somewhat more salubrious surroundings of the historic Astor House Hotel, where red lanterns and Art Deco decor were the backdrop to a parade of Shanghai’s most fashionable people.
Rather than a staid runway-style presentation, the “show” was a dance routine choreographed by Blanca Li and featuring some of China’s best-known models kitted out in McCartney’s designs.
“My God, that just there. How many dancers, and all in my clothes. That was just the most amazing thing ever,” the designer enthused as the finale, performed to Daft Punk’s “Around the World,” came to its conclusion.
“We’ve been planning this event for a year, and we really wanted to do something that no one else had done,” McCartney explained. “People come here and they show collections in conventional ways, and we really wanted to bring the collection to life in a different way here.
“I was in Beijing yesterday at my store opening and today in Reel [Department Store] in my store, so I’ve been meeting a lot of my customers. It’s been really great to have that experience, actually.”
That was one of the main purposes of the designer’s trip. “For me on a personal level, I hope to have a greater understanding of this part of the world,” McCartney said a few days earlier after landing in Tokyo and straight off a quick FaceTime chat with her kids back home. “Obviously it’s really great to engage in this part of the world, to have an understanding and to really be kind of experiencing it both as a designer and as a creative person.”
Stella McCartney is investing heavily in Asia, said Frederick Lukoff, president and chief executive officer of the fashion house, which is a 50-50 joint venture between the designer and Paris-based Kering. “It’s very much about Asian momentum now,” Lukoff said.
He declined to give sales figures but said the brand’s business in Japan has been growing at a double-digit pace over the last few years. China, a smaller and younger business for the brand, is “growing fast but from a low base,” the executive said.