Stella McCartney inspired by sister Heather for autumn 2014 collection

Stella McCartney invited her celebrity friends to her pre-fall 2014 collection, which payed homage to the punky predelictions of her half-sister Heather

BY OLIVIA BERGIN | 14 JANUARY 2014

A coterie of cool girls - and the likes of Liv Tyler, Helena Christensen and Susan Sarandon feted Stella McCartney's autumn 2014 collection in New York last night.

While those across on the West Coast nursed their post-Golden Globes hangovers, McCartney welcomed a dozen models and her shelebridee friends to Harold Pratt House in New York's Upper East Side.

A hopscotch taped to the floor and miniature cars strewn around the Park Avenue mansion for said models to frolic around in ensured it was no staid affair. Brick Lane author Zadie Smith, actor Alec Baldwin and Blythe Danner (aka Gwyneth Paltrow's mum) all took in McCartney's latest offerings.

And what of the clothes?

Three recurring motifs made up most of the collection: a large spot pattern across silky trousers and tops; houndstooth checks and line drawings of a woman's face upon rollneck jumpers and black minidresses.

"I was thinking about the interruption for my sister and what that must have been like," explained to WWD.

Referring to 51-year-old Heather, her elder sister from her mother Linda's first marriage to Joseph Melville See Jr., Heather was six when she was adopted by Linda's second husband, former Beatles member Paul McCartney. Heather, a potter, was nine years old when Stella, now 42, arrived into the world; her McCartney siblings also include Mary, a photographer and James, a songwriter.

Heather displayed punky predilections and was friends with rock musician Billy Idol, but then Linda and Paul turned their backs on London to raise their brood in the English countryside.

McCartney described the influence on her latest collection as: "taking quite punky, black-and-white edgy stuff and softening it."

The mother-of-four founded her eponymous label in 2001.

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