Review of Stella McCartney Winter 2025 Ad Campaign by Creative Director of Stella McCartney with models Natalia Vodianova, Amelia Gray, Karolina Spakowski, Haojie Qi, Song Ah Woo, Angelina Kendall, Yilan Hua, Agel Akol, Caitlin Soetendal, Claire Marie, Victoria Fawole and Hanna Leszek
Stella McCartney unveils her Winter 2025 campaign, cheekily titled Laptop to Lapdance, with Eva Mendes front and center. Directed toward the working woman who slips from conference room to cocktail bar, the campaign was staged inside STELLACORP—an imagined materials lab that spotlights the house’s relentless pursuit of cruelty-free innovation. It is a quintessential Stella gesture: part parody of corporate culture, part manifesto of sustainable style, always with an undercurrent of knowing wit.
The collection itself is characteristically strong. Savile Row suiting takes on sharp, empowered shoulders, while draped knits and sensual cinching recall the play of structure and fluidity that has become McCartney’s DNA. Vegan interpretations of snake and ostrich—innovated through mycelium technology—provide both a timely critique of exotic skin trade and a real-world solution, proving sustainability need not dilute glamour. Adding art-world cachet, a limited-edition Jeff Koons collaboration lands with Stella’s subversive slogan, Slippery When Wet, printed across organic cotton.
And yet, despite the richness of material, the campaign’s imagery leaves one craving more. For a house that consistently pioneers—whether through textiles, ethics, or inventive collaborations—this particular execution feels more like a polished office lookbook than a fully fleshed-out narrative. The office-as-playground staging had potential to lean into satire, to sharpen the tension between corporate monotony and nocturnal abandon, but instead the photographs read as fleeting moments rather than a story in motion. With Eva Mendes and a striking roster of talent, one expects images that capture Stella’s fierce humor and sensual intelligence at full tilt. Here, the visuals don’t quite keep pace with the strength of the clothes.
That said, Stella’s decision to expand the campaign into a digital series—Shop With Stella: Winter 2025—is a reminder of her future-facing instinct. By inviting global audiences into an immersive shopping experience, she reframes fashion not just as product, but as participatory performance. It is here, in the merging of platform and purpose, that her vision shines.
Ultimately, Laptop to Lapdance delivers compelling clothes, a powerhouse lead, and an uncompromising stance on ethics, but it stumbles in visual storytelling. Stella McCartney has built her reputation on never doing things halfway—whether in fabric innovation or her pioneering fight against animal cruelty. The hope is that future campaigns will match the ingenuity of the garments themselves, ensuring the message lands not only in the material but also in the mood. After all, if anyone can turn the office into a stage set for transformation, it’s Stella. She just needs to let the flirtation run all the way to the punchline.
Stella McCartney Creative Director | Stella McCartney
Models | Natalia Vodianova, Amelia Gray, Karolina Spakowski, Haojie Qi, Song Ah Woo, Angelina Kendall, Yilan Hua, Agel Akol, Caitlin Soetendal, Claire Marie, Victoria Fawole and Hanna Leszek