Family is certainly important to her. At Stella McCartney fashion shows, the show notes given to guests are prefaced with a page of dedications in her handwriting, almost always to “mum and dad,” as well as her husband and children. Her father is a regular in the front row, and the pair seem closer than ever following his divorce from Heather Mills. When McCartney opened her first Paris store a year ago, I happened to drop in the day before the glam opening party and found McCartney showing her dad and Nancy Shevell, his girlfriend, around the shop in private. Paul was in jeans and carrying a music store carrier bag, every inch the everyman. Later, at a tea party for editors, McCartney arranged a puppet show and low benches so that guests could bring their children; the hostess could be found perched at knee height, discussing the merits of Ben Ten with younger guests. McCartney and her husband are known for being rather normal, at least by the glitzy standards of their milieu: I once heard an acquaintance of theirs comment on how charmingly quirky they were in not having a nanny at weekends.
McCartney can be spiky though. She is businesslike, direct — a world away from most fashion designers, whose idea of giving an interview is calling you darling a lot, and complimenting your shoes. When I ask her, genuinely curious, whether the people who work for her would ever eat, say, a bacon sandwich in the office, and she snaps at me for asking a question the establishment press would ask. No, I’m just genuinely curious, I say. “Do they? I don’t know. I assume they do. I don’t think about it. Sometimes, at lunchtime, I can really smell fish when people are eating, and then I’ll shout — OK guys, enough fish. My argument is, if a journalist comes into our office and it stinks of fish, that’s weird.” She doesn’t have much of a sense of humor about the vegetarian thing, but then, why should she? It’s not a joke to her.
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