Stella McCartney hopes her children will "do good and change the planet".
Stella McCartney and Prince Charles at COP26 exhibit
The 50-year-old fashion designer, animal rights campaigner and environmentalist has been impressed by the next generation, who continue to turn up to protests across the world amid the climate crisis, and she hopes her own youngsters - Miller, Beckett, Bailey and Reiley - will follow in her activist footsteps.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph newspaper, Stella said: “They’re the future, it’s our responsibility to safeguard the planet for them. They’re also the only hope we have. They’re fighting for their right to have life on earth and if they have to sit on the street and make someone late for school or late for work then you know what, it’s worth it. I think the next generation is very impressive.”
Of her own brood - whom she has with publisher husband Alasdhair Willis - she said: “Oh God, well I’ve got four children, so you can’t ask me that."
She then quipped: "That wasn’t very sustainable of me ... But I’m hoping that my children will do good and change the planet.”
The mother-of-four - who is the daughter of Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney and his late ex-wife Linda - this week begged for fur to be banned amid the COP26 UN climate conference.
And as COP26 got underway in Glasgow, Stella opened the 'Future of Fashion: An innovation conversation with Stella McCartney' exhibit at the Scottish city's Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum this week, which she attended to call for legislation to be created to stop animals being culled for fashion.
Speaking at the launch, she said: “I'm here today because I'm begging for policy to be put in place for the fashion industry."
Stella also called on fast-fashion retailers to cut their produce to help flatten their carbon footprint, and she insisted it's still possible to have "a sexy, well-designed" product and make money with a "cleaner, more sustainable" approach.
She explained: “Fast fashion [brands] obviously need to reduce what they produce.
“I want to show my industry that you can have a business model in working in a cleaner, more sustainable way. You don't have to kill and don't have to cut down rainforests, and you can have a sexy, well-designed, lasting, beautiful bag. I'm here to show that you can still make money.”
Stella said those who are "killing animals" and "cutting down our rainforests" have blood on their hands and should feel guilty.
She added: “There's this kind of mindset, that killing animals just for handbags, slaughtering them, skinning them, cutting down our rainforests is fine, that's capitalism, and that's how we should make money. I'm like - that should be guilt, you should feel bad when you work in that way.”
Stella met with Prince Charles and Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio at the event, before she took part in a discussion with industry experts about ending the use of fur and animal leather.
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