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Aug 27, 2023

See Stella McCartney and Shie Lyu Ingeniously Reinterpret Each Other’s Work

By Laura Hawkins Photography by Norman Jean Roy and Reven Lei Styled by Max

By Laura Hawkins

Photography by Norman Jean Roy and Reven Lei

Styled by Max Ortega and Tonne Goodman

When Shanghai-and-Chengdu-based womenswear designer Shie Lyu received an email inviting her to take part in a Vogue-initiated collaborative project with Stella McCartney, her astonishment bordered on disbelief. "I thought the message was spam!" exclaims Lyu, who founded her label in 2020.

PIECES OF WORKStella McCartney reimagined Shie Lyu's look as a denim patchwork coat, worn here by model Grace Elizabeth. Hair, Joey George; makeup, Kuma. Photographed by Norman Jean Roy. Fashion Editor: Max Ortega. Produced by The Canvas Agency.

MAKING CHANGELyu transformed McCartney's look into a corset and skirt articulated with brass hardware—as worn here by model Estelle Chen. Hair and makeup, Yang Xinrui. Photographed by Reven Lei. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman. Produced by Casey Homovich.

A short while later, in London, McCartney's team opened the first mystery box shipped from Lyu's Chengdu studio—which contained a fall 2022 floral-quilted cropped jacket and coordinating miniskirt, an abstract print top, gauzy black stockings, and chokers strung with romantic pearls and steel hardware. "There was a moment of pause where you think, Gosh, this has happened in such a different part of the world," says McCartney. "I could see similarities in the dusty color palette and the tension between the masculine and feminine. I was also blown away by the love put into the look—the intricate stitchwork, the level of detail." Take, for example, the impressionistic print, created using zoomed-in images of upcycled objects, like beads and paillettes, that had been chilled in Lyu's freezer. "Shie cast a spell over our entire studio."

Enchantment aside, when Lyu's small team unpacked McCartney's summer 2023 runway look—an oversized double-​breasted suit in a Wall Street gray traceable-wool mix, layered with a seductive top made from draped recyclable brass chains—they were a bit intimidated by its precise sophistication. "We don't really produce tailoring, so the look felt very challenging and out of our comfort zone," Lyu recalls of the ensemble, which nodded to the golden halter necks and tank tops McCartney showcased on the Chloé spring 2000 catwalk when she was creative director of the Parisian maison.

Top left: Courtesy of Shie Lyu. Top right: Photographed by Norman Jean Roy. Fashion Editor: Max Ortega. Hair, Joey George; Makeup, Kuma. Produced by The Canvas Agency.

Lyu wanted to celebrate the skilled construction behind McCartney's mannish suit, which also draws on the time the designer spent training with bespoke tailors on London's Savile Row in the early ’90s. So her tailoring was turned inside out, deconstructed, and dissected into a glamorous tricolor corset and pencil skirt with a diaphanous train in newly incorporated polyester. "The white, gray, and black fabric is from the shoulder padding, chest plate, and linings of the jacket," Lyu says.

McCartney was thrilled by the elevation of her suiting's concealed workings. "That extent of internal work—that's something we really pride ourselves in."

A record 91 percent of McCartney's summer 2023 collection was created using conscious materials—from mycelium mushroom leather to regenerative cotton—and as a pioneer and advocate of recycling and reuse, the designer wanted to incorporate only second-life materials into her transformation of Lyu's look. To complement the uplifting hue of the quilted fabric in the two-piece, McCartney looked to the surplus organic cotton denim swatches in her London studio, creating a reversible belted trench coat jigsawed with the pockets, waistbands, and patches of about 30 pairs of jeans in a spectrum of blue, along with embroidered trial swatches and samples of her geometric S-wave denim jacquard. (The design echoes a two-piece McCartney created as part of her spring 2021 A-Z Manifesto, with the phrase "R is for Repurpose" stitched on a patchwork denim jacket and trousers crafted with surplus from 2017 and 2019 collections.)

"Denim is ageless," McCartney explains of what she calls the "Stellafication" of Lyu's garment into something infinitely wearable.

McCartney's repurpose-focused ethos is recognizable in Lyu's work, too. When the new Parsons graduate was working on her debut Shanghai Fashion Week collection at the height of the pandemic in 2020, she was unable to source new materials.

Top left: Matteo Prandoni / BFA.com. Top right: Photographed by Reven Lei. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman. Hair and Makeup: Yang Xinrui. Produced by Casey Homovich.

"Everything was closed, transportation was impossible, and I could only use what I had," she says. "So I incorporated lots of acrylic, rubber, and Swarovski crystals left over from my degree studies." Lyu's conscious approach may have been one of necessity rather than ethos, but she's continued to evolve in her eco-awareness. To bring a "hyper-feminine" and eveningwear-inclined element to McCartney's formal tailoring fabrics, she used a signature zero-waste cutting technique to create the gossamer train of a skirt, which is constructed from squares that are handworked with an origami effect over several days to resemble butterflies or grooved shells. "Every inch of the fabric is used," Lyu says.

There's a certain undoneness to both McCartney's and Lyu's creations, the former relishing in a design "rough around the edges," with fraying fabrics and unfinished hems, while Lyu took inspiration from what McCartney called the "feminine slink" of her golden chain top, incorporating buckles and metal-hoop lacing and adding crisscrossing machine stitching and embroidery to trace the female form like a feisty take on a tailor's chalk.

The fact that their work together was a female-led creative exchange only adds to the joy. "There are so few women heading up brands, let alone founders," McCartney laments. "But the majority of our team are women."

"It's been unbelievable," adds Lyu, who hopes to meet McCartney face to face—instead of communicating via threads and fabrics—when the latter visits China later this year. "I really want to try the trench coat on!"

"I promise to personally carry it in my hand luggage," McCartney says, smiling.

Associate Director, Creative Development, Vogue: Alexandra GurvitchSenior Producer, Vogue: Jordin RocchiSenior Editor: Evan AllanLondon CrewDirector: Luke SpencerProducer: Benjamin WhitleyDP: Arthur LovedayAC: Chris OrrAudio: Declan Chew, Joe HarrisHair Stylist: Louis Byrne, Eamonn HughesMakeup Artist: Chynara Kojoeva, Kirstin PiggottChengdu CrewDirector: Benjamin MullinkossonProducer: Casey HomovichDP: Gennady Baranov1st AC: Zhang Kaidong2nd AC: Du BoTechnician: Long XueguiAudio: He JunyiDIT: Xie PingHair and Makeup: Yang XinruiHair and Makeup Assistant: Zhou YutongCreative Editorial Director, Vogue: Mark GuiducciGlobal Network Lead & U.S. Fashion Features Director, Vogue: Mark HolgateGlobal Head of Fashion Network: Virginia SmithFashion Features Editor, Vogue: Laura HawkinsSustainability Editor, Vogue: Tonne Goodman Visuals Director, Vogue Global: David LipfordAssociate Visuals Editor, Vogue: Billy KiesslingProduction Coordinator: Ava KasharProduction Manager: Kit FogartySenior Director, Production Management: Jessica SchierAssistant Editors: Ben Harowitz, Andy Morell, Justin Symonds, Billy WardPost Production Coordinator: Jovan JamesSupervising Editor: Kameron KeyPost Production Supervisor: Edward TaylorDirector of Content, Vogue: Rahel GebreyesSenior Director, Programming, Vogue: Linda GittlesonExecutive Producer: Ruhiya NuruddinVP, Digital Video English, Vogue: Thespena Guatieri