Stella McCartney Lingerie

When the designer Stella McCartney moved into underwear, she did it through a partner: Stella McCartney Lingerie, the intimates line of her London fashion house, launched in early 2008 under a license with Bendon, the New Zealand lingerie manufacturer, which designed and produced the range with her for nearly a decade until the partnership ended in September 2017.

A Fashion House Before a Lingerie Line

The lingerie came seven years after the label. McCartney, the daughter of Paul and Linda McCartney, trained at Central Saint Martins and in 1997 was named creative director of Chloe in Paris, a post she held until 2001. That year she launched her own fashion house as a joint venture with the Gucci Group, now Kering, and showed her first collection in Paris.

From the start the house had one rule that set it apart. McCartney, a lifelong vegetarian, used no leather and no fur. In 2001 that was a commercial risk for a luxury label, since leather accessories paid the bills at most fashion houses. It also gave her brand a clear identity that later extensions, lingerie included, would carry.

The Bendon License, 2007 to 2017

Lingerie is a technical category, and very few fashion designers make it themselves. Bras need specialist pattern work, graded cup sizes, wire channels and elastics, and factories set up for small, precise components. The usual route is a license, and that is what McCartney chose.

Her partner was Bendon, a company established in 1947 on Auckland's North Shore by Ray Hurley, a former naval officer, and his brother Des Hurley, a pattern cutter. By the 2000s Bendon was an experienced partner for famous names: it had produced Elle Macpherson Intimates, with Macpherson as the face of the brand from 1990. McCartney signed with Bendon in 2007, and the first Stella McCartney lingerie collection reached stores in early 2008.

The arrangement lasted almost ten years. In September 2017 Bendon confirmed it was ending its relationship with Stella McCartney. The timing coincided with upheaval at Bendon itself, which was bought that year by the NASDAQ-listed company Naked Brand Group in a reverse takeover. Bendon had already moved its main brand focus to Heidi Klum Intimates, launched with the model from 2014.

Stella McCartney Lingerie Design

Stella McCartney lingerie followed the look of her ready-to-wear: clean shapes, modern colors and a lighter touch than the classic French lingerie houses. This museum's records list bras, briefs and bodysuits as the line's core, and its best-known pieces paired fine lace with sheer fabrics and the restrained cut of her clothing.

The no-leather, no-fur rule had little practical effect in a category that rarely uses either, and an earlier version of this entry overstated its significance, including a claim that the line replaced silk throughout. That claim could not be confirmed and has been removed. So has a quoted "worn beneath" design philosophy attributed to McCartney, for which no source could be found.

After Bendon

The ownership of the house has changed twice since the license ended. In April 2018 McCartney bought back Kering's stake in her company, and in 2019 she entered a strategic partnership with LVMH, which took a minority share. In January 2025 she repurchased that LVMH stake as well, returning the house to full independent ownership.

How the lingerie line has been produced since 2017, and in what form it continues, is not set out in the sources reviewed for this entry.

Why the Line Mattered

Stella McCartney Lingerie arrived in 2008 as one of the first intimates ranges from a luxury designer whose house was built on animal-free materials. It showed that a fashion name with a clear ethical stance could carry into underwear through a license, without the designer building her own corsetry workshop. It also showed the risk in that model: in 2017 the licensee's priorities changed, and the arrangement ended.

Last updated October 7, 2026