<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Stella McCartney&amp;amp;#8217;s love affair with fashion started when she was a child exploring her parents&amp;amp;#8217; closet. She must have marveled at her mother&amp;amp;#8217;s hippie dresses and her father&amp;amp;#8217;s Sgt. Pepper coats; it doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t hurt one&amp;amp;#8217;s sartorial imagination to have a Beatle for a dad. Fast-forward three decades and McCartney is now one of the world&amp;amp;#8217;s most influential designers, combining the exquisite technique she learned as an apprentice tailor on Savile Row (it was three years before she was allowed to attach a sleeve) with an inborn sense of what makes a woman look really, really cool. &amp;amp;#8220;Stella,&amp;amp;#8221; says Barneys creative director Simon Doonan, &amp;amp;#8220;makes women feel empowered and completely gorgeous.&amp;amp;#8221; McCartney, who launched her career at age 25 as chief designer for Chlo&amp;amp;eacute; and now has her own company, says, &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;ve never really paused. If I had time to stop and think about what I was doing, I might have run for the hills!&amp;amp;#8221; Through it all, she has remained devoted to her family (she&amp;amp;#8217;s a mom of three) and her beliefs. Well before the greening of fashion was in vogue, this lifelong animal rights activist refused to work in leather or fur. Today, in defiance of a bad economy, her designs&amp;amp;#8212;including her lines for Adidas and now GapKids&amp;amp;#8212;make cash registers ring in 50 countries. &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;m trying to create beautiful objects for many different women,&amp;amp;#8221; she says. &amp;amp;#8220;Real women.&amp;amp;#8221; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/inspired/women-of-the-year/2009/stella-mccartney>