February 22, 2012
What Drives Stella McCartneyBy CATHY HORYN
Stella McCartney proposed that we take the tube. The concert was at the 02 arena in London’s East End, and the traffic that December evening was sure to be heavy. She tried to make the prospect of cold stations and uncertain routes seem an adventure, but her husband, Alasdhair Willis, a tall, pleasant man with a slight Yorkshire accent, prevailed upon her (“Stell . . .”) to order a car. So at 6:45, joined by their son Miller, 6, and daughter Bailey, 5, who were being allowed to stay up late on a school night, along with a nanny, we set off in a black minivan to see her 69-year-old father perform a three-hour extravaganza of Beatles and Wings favorites with Jumbotron flashbacks of the Fab Four. Two more children, Beckett, 3, and a baby girl named Reiley, stayed home with a baby sitter in Notting Hill.
As Miller and Bailey clowned and laughed on the jump seat, Stella called her father to report our progress. Miller, who had already announced, “I want Granddad to sing ‘Back in the U.S.S.R.’!” then got on the phone, his freckled face beaming as he made his request. Stella gave an amused sigh. She was wearing a dark gray sweater — a sample from a knitwear fitting held that afternoon — with jeans and black high heels. Despite the number of sweaters and leggings she and her design team had pinned, pulled and ripped apart, the four-hour session ended on schedule at 4 p.m., and despite how numbingly tedious this work had been, she seemed refreshed by the thought of going to watch Bailey’s ballet recital, which was scheduled for 5 at the nearby home of a friend. After that, of course, there was the concert.
In the arena’s backstage, Stella and her husband greeted several tour hands. The corridor was crowded with friends and other special guests spilling out of a party room where drinks were being served. Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones wandered past, trailed by a young woman. Paul McCartney’s new wife, Nancy Shevell, a slim, fine-boned woman who had been helping her husband get ready, came up, and Stella gave her a hug. We found Paul in his dressing room, a suite done in velvet-dark hues with a row of suits and shirts along one wall. He shook hands and then excused himself, saying he still had some warming up to do, and went into the next room, followed by Bailey and Miller. Soon there was the sound of gargling.
When the concert got going, Stella was on her feet, swaying and tossing her reddish blond hair and singing along. She has an excellent voice. She also inherited her father’s chubby-cheeked countenance and his self-armored ease. By contrast, Mary McCartney, Stella’s older sister and confidante, who came to the show with two of her sons and their young friends, seemed happy to remain seated most of the time. A photographer, Mary is darkly pretty and laid-back, but like her mother, Linda, she has no wish to master public life. Later, when I spoke to Laura Eastman Malcolm, Linda’s younger sister, she described a trip in the family’s station wagon: “Paul was driving, and Mary turns to me and in this disapproving tone says: ‘Do you like the fans? I’m sure you hate them!’ She was 8. Paul loves the fans. He can deal with them.” The implication is that Stella can also deal with public life. She says that, sure, the fans used to freak her out, too. “You’re like a little wall of defense,” she told me a few days later. “There’s dad, and you’re like this little wall in front, trying to spot who’s going to attack.” She laughed. “And then you grow up, and you realize he’s cool with it. He’s done it since he was 17.”
