LONDON — Stella McCartney’s business in fiscal 2022 saw considerable improvement, with the company’s loss before tax narrowing to 10 million pounds from 32.7 million pounds a year earlier, according to the latest filing at Companies House in the U.K.
Turnover in the 12 months to Dec. 31, 2022, rose 23 percent to 40 million pounds, which applies only to the sales the brand generates in the U.K. Operating loss shrank to 8.7 million pounds in the period, from 30 million pounds in 2021.
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The statement said the strong improvement in operating loss versus 2021 confirmed “the trajectory toward break-even.”
In that period, the brand ran two directly operated stores, hosted two fashion shows at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, renewed its long-lasting collaboration with Adidas and expanded into the skin care category.
The transition of the distribution of the kids’ line to a licensing model with Simonetta Spa added 3 million pounds to the books, the statement revealed.
As a brand known for advocating sustainable practices, Stella McCartney also continued to help improve industry practice via a series of partnerships and showcase innovative ways to reduce its impact on the environment with its annual impact report.
For example, the brand said that its alliance since 2019 with cotton producers Soktas in Turkey, which aims at enhancing soil health and carbon capture, restoring and improving local biodiversity, helped Soktas achieve Regenagri certification. The cotton producer also increased land farmed regeneratively from five to 55 hectares.
The company also onboarded more of its suppliers onto the Clean by Design initiative by Apparel Impact Institute during the period. The project supports the suppliers in undertaking energy assessments and provides a roadmap to suppliers for improvement around efficiency and transitioning to renewables.
Looking into fiscal 2023, the company said it faced “significant pressure from inflation on materials and salaries, with adverse effects in particular on the cost of goods sold. This external factor is mitigated by the review of selling prices and increases where relevant. It is also being turned into an opportunity to further review ways of working, finding efficiencies, and fighting waste while remaining fair to partners and employees.”
In 2023, McCartney was honored with a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, for services to fashion and sustainability from fellow environmental activist and friend King Charles III.
In March, she staged a horse show at France’s oldest riding school, Manege Ecole Militaire, with a performance of seven wild horses, led by “horse whisperer” and rescuer Jean-Francois Pignon, in cantering, frolicking and rolling in the dirt as models breezed by.
The show later led to a partnership with the New York-based wild horse nonprofit Rewilding America Now, and a dreamy campaign featuring Kendall Jenner and Pignon’s wild horses.
Ahead of the Met Gala in May, McCartney spoke to FIT fashion students on her design ethos, moral compass and calls to action on leather subsidies. Days later, she gave a spoken word performance about sustainability and nature during King Charles III’s coronation concert at Windsor Castle.
During the spring 2024 fashion month, McCartney presented the Hult Prize to banana leather developer Banofi, turned her show at Paris Fashion Week into a street fair with stalls featuring vintage clothing, tour merchandise and a new fabric made of seaweed, and later took her spring collection to Shanghai with a performance by Chinese rapper Adawa with dancers dressed in pieces from the latest Stella McCartney x Hajime Sorayama capsule.
In the meantime, she collaborated with her sister Mary McCartney and The Macallan, a single malt whiskey distillery in Scotland, on a lifestyle and whiskey collection, created a limited-edition Falabella bag that will raise money for The Chopra Foundation and highlight the healing powers of horses, and worked with fellow LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton brand Veuve Clicquot on a partnership that turns manually collected grape stems from the Champagne harvest into luxury accessories.
In December, she tapped Amandine Ohayon to succeed Gabriele Maggio as the brand’s new chief executive officer to elevate the brand and accelerate its development based on its long-standing commitment to sustainable fashion.
Ohayon was most recently CEO of Pronovias, where she put a strong accent on sustainability and managed the sale to Bain Capital earlier this year.
Rounding up 2023, she brought the brand’s “sustainable market concept” to COP28 to showcase textile innovations, all plant-based, which the brand utilizes and took over the Corner Shop at Selfridges for the holiday season with an installation titled “Stellabration.”
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