She can work it out

Lunchtime at the Stella McCartney store on Bruton Street, and there are more shop assistants than customers. The three-floor paean to girlish chic is one of the most stunning retail spaces in London, and couldn't be more enticing to women with hundreds of pounds to spend. But they aren't spending hundreds of pounds. Specifically, they spent just £434,611 on her clothes in the year to January 2003.

In January 2003, Stella's London store didn't exist: it was opened in May, with great fanfare, as part of Gucci Group's plans to make McCartney a global fashion brand. Madonna came along (flash!), while the LA store, opening five months later, saw Demi Moore (flash!), Cate Blanchett (flash-flash!) and Pamela Anderson (flash-flash-flash!) stepping out. McCartney has no shortage of A-list friends. Paying customers are another matter.

It is all a far cry from her days at Chloe, the tired Parisian label she revitalised by quadrupling sales during her four years at the helm. Clearly, Stella knows how to shift clothes: in 1999, you couldn't move for girls in Chloe jeans and batwing tops. So what has gone wrong?

The informed opinion is: well, nothing very much. Building your own brand from scratch is much harder than revitalising an existing one, and while profits at Stella McCartney Ltd are slim, the losses filed aren't particularly hefty.

It is common for a new label to enjoy heavy investment in its first few years, and three new store openings wouldn't have come cheap to Gucci Group, which has pumped at least £3.2 million into the brand during the financial year.

To make a helpful comparison, Gucci Group doesn't expect Yves Saint Laurent to break even until 2005 - three years after its acquisition, even Tom Ford's Midas touch will have failed to get the label into the black. Does this make Ford a failure? He is due to leave the group in 2004. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is simply proof of what a tough retail climate we are enduring, and a testament to the level of investment necessary to make a brand successful. Fashion is an expensive business.

There was also the launch of Stella's eponymous first perfume this year, another pricy enterprise, yet an essential one for the development of the brand.

However established a label, it is the perfume sales which keep it afloat: in its first year, sales of Christian Dior's J'Adore netted LVMH e130 million (£85 million), a figure likely to be far greater than the profits from its clothes. Stella McCartney will be hoping for the same sweet smell of success with her new rose-scented bouquet.

But will women want to smell like Stella? Clearly, they don't want to dress like her. Or do they? If Stella is supposed to be such a talentless designer, then why is she the most copied person on the high street? In autumn 2002, her outsized grey cableknit cardie inspired a Topshop homage, which sold out within hours; in spring 2003, Warehouse did a version of her canvas utility bag, and, this Christmas, Oasis has a rendition of her satin corset dress.

High street retailers don't copy duds, and there is no doubt that McCartney, more than most, has been a victim of the British high street's excellence at manufacturing lookalikes at knockdown prices.

Stella's clothes may appeal to high-street retailers catering for 16-year-olds, but are they too young to appeal to her core customer? By the time you can afford a pair of her £400 satin drainpipes, won't you be too old to carry them off?

The same argument could hold true for Dolce and Gabbana or Dior: both labels peddle youthful clothes to women well past the first flush, yet their success is based on such aesthetics. McCartney's current autumn collection, notably, is more focused on tailoring, while next spring's collection is more sophisticated still. It will be interesting see how this translates to sales in a year's time.

I have sat through fashion shows that have made me want to slap the (almost exclusively homosexual) designer for creating such ridiculous clothes. In an industry ruled by gay men, it is always refreshing to see a Stella show: you can tell that she tries very hard to focus on what women want to wear.

That her template is her friends - stick-thin beauties who inhabit the organic juice bars of Notting and Beverly Hills - does not make her unusual: nearly all international designers cater for twiglets. But because she is a woman, I would like to see Stella take a stronger stance on selling larger sizes.

That she has stuck so firmly to her principles by not working with fur or leather - an easy money-spinner for the likes of Prada and Gucci - proves that she does not shy away from a fight: it would be fantastic for larger women if she could be their champion by arguing for her clothes to be made in sizes beyond a skimpy 14. Laugh if you will, but Stella McCartney Plus would be a goldmine.

I'm glad Stella found love in the form of new husband Alasdhair Willis this year, because she's had too much hate from the fashion industry. Karl Lagerfeld denounced her as "a T-shirt maker", yet still felt sufficiently threatened by her to ensure that his A-list roster of Chanel models didn't walk for McCartney's show the same day.

Jeff Banks, Paco Rabanne and countless journalists have also had a pop. Their jealousy is understandable: her famous dad meant acres of free publicity in an industry where publicity is everything.

Yes, it was puke-making when Kate and Naomi stalked down the catwalk at McCartney's graduation show in 1995, but, eight years later, it is time to give the girl her due.

She may have used her connections to catapult up the career ladder, but who hasn't? I could name and shame a hundred people.

The truth is that women wear Stella because they like her clothes, her attitude and what she stands for. Daughter of a Beatle she may be, but surely it's time to change the record.