Mother inspired me, says Stella

Fashion designer Stella McCartney has revealed how her mother inspired her to become a vegetarian and environmentalist.

In a rare interview, the daughter of Sir Paul McCartney has told the Evening Standard how her views leave colleagues regarding her as "a right pain".

McCartney, 33, learned her principles from her mother, Linda, who died of cancer in 1998.

She tells ES magazine: "For me, vegetarianism is based on ethics. It's how I was brought up. My mum was very vocal and we were all educated to understand why we weren't eating meat. But actually, now I look at it from all different angles, I think it's very wrong to have the mass murder, every single day, of millions of animals.

"I find something wrong with that on a spiritual level, an environmental level and an ethical level."

Her views on the environment became more focused after baby Miller was born 10 months ago. His father is Alasdhair Willis, publisher of the magazine Wallpaper*, whom McCartney married in 2003.

"I found that when you have a baby, they are so pure and untouched that a car goes past and you look at all the pollution and you really want to protect them," she says.

"As they get older and more robust you sort-of forget about it but you only want to put pure cotton next to their skin. And you worry.

"When I was young, I would think about the environment but I always assumed that my greatgreatgreat-grandchildren would be fine. Now it looks like the next generation won't be." She is about to take delivery of a Lexus RX 400h, which runs on petrol and has an electric motor, and her flagship store in Bruton Street, Mayfair, is run on windpowered electricity.

"I can say that not one animal has suffered or died for one thing in there," McCartney says.

Read the full interview in ES Magazine's green issue FREE with tomorrow's Standard