IT IS no secret within the fashion industry that Stella McCartney has been given until next year to break even by Gucci Group, the company that owns 50 per cent of her business. So have the other, smaller brands under the Gucci umbrella, including Alexander McQueen and Boucheron, the jeweller.

That is the kind of pressure a girl can do without, especially when Nicholas Ghesquière, creative director at the iconic house of Balenciaga, also owned by Gucci Group, has announced that he has taken his label into profit two years ahead of schedule.

McCartney’s two custom-built shops in New York and London, important showcases for a designer hoping to establish international markets, account for some of the losses, but the six-year odyssey towards profitability underlines how difficult — and expensive — it is for a new brand to gain a foothold in the global consciousness, even a designer with an already famous name.

On paper, McCartney is the dream designer. When she produced a collection for H&M last autumn, the best pieces sold out and the nation’s shoppers disgraced themselves with some regrettable behaviour in the race to the tills. But at least the collection confirmed her as a designer with mass appeal.

She is personable, stylish (frequently topping best-dressed polls), young and well connected. Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Hudson wear her own-name label to the Oscars and premieres. Liv Tyler and Kate Moss are friends. Madonna turns up to her press launches. However much it chafes her when this observation is made, the family mantle has undoubtedly been more of a help than a hindrance, ensuring her the kind of publicity that only money can buy.

Yet trying to spot paying customers inside the (all too) peaceful confines of McCartney’s two stores has become a national sport with the British tabloids. That said, according to Gucci Group, McCartney is well on her way to fulfilling her targets. Annual revenue has apparently doubled to £7.3 million; losses have declined nearly 70 per cent to just under £1 million. And after years of trying on multiple identities — rock chic, socialite, streetwise urbanite, preppie — McCartney seems to have settled on an aesthetic that hovers between the last two tribes.

As with her summer collection, McCartney’s winter collection, which she showed yesterday in Paris, offers more staples (for the immensely long of limb and deep of pocket, that is): loose sweater dresses, some with sequins, trouser suits, voluminous coats with huge funnel collars and swooping curved hems, all in sombre shades of brown, navy or charcoal, and all of them polished and smart.

While it should all add up to an explosive combination, somehow it makes for more of a warmish glow that has yet to ignite. On the other hand, McCartney has a talent for non-leather accessories: cute velvet handbags and a good-looking cutaway ankle boot-shoe hybrid. Surely a girl who can coax fur-loving fashionistas into fake leather deserves to succeed with a global brand of her own?

Stella Moments

2001 Sets up her own label. First collection features trouser suits with lewd cockney rhyming slang. The fashion crowd is not amused. She continues to produce some of the best-cut trousers

Autumn 2002 Her oversize, zip-through, chunky cardigan spawns 1,000 imitations

2004 She launches a sportswear collection with adidas, beloved of gym poseurs everywhere. She launches a tennis collection for them this month. Adidas expects McCartney’s range to boost sales by at least €10 million (£6.86 million) next year. She designs costumes for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow , starring Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. The film is shockingly bad but it looks gorgeous

Winter 2005 McCartney’s non-leather over-the-knee boots become the celebs’ legwear of choice, seen on Victoria Beckham, Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna

Hits Espadrille with black lacing across the foot and up the ankle; equestrian badge bag

Misses Pale, uninteresting dress worn by Gwyneth Paltrow at the 2005 Oscars; saggy, knotted cut-out swimsuits; off-the-shoulder yellow silk bomber jacket