Stella McCartney was in her late twenties when she learnt transcendental meditation — young enough to wince at the cost of the lessons but old enough to know that she needed them. “I paid, and it was like, oooff,” the designer says, screwing up her face for emphasis. “I didn’t want to part with money for it. But, you know, it’s probably the best investment I ever made.”

Back then McCartney was only recently installed as the creative director of the French fashion house Chloé, where her youth and her very famous father had led her predecessor in the role, Karl Lagerfeld, to sneer: “I think they should have taken a big name. They did, but in music, not fashion.” She had also just lost