By Stella, Founder & Creative Director, E1 Equestrian + Stellar Cheval

The color black has always held a certain power in fashion. We never really outgrow it. Chic, uncomplicated, a little serious when it needs to be. Coco Chanel built an entire language around it. A century later, Miranda Priestly returned in The Devil Wears Prada 2 with the same visual shorthand that made her iconic.

I think about equestrian style that way, too.

Designers keep returning to the horse. The boots lead, the fitted jackets follow, and horsebit hardware appears everywhere. But if you come from the equestrian world, none of it ever really went anywhere.

And Rancho Santa Fe is one of the best examples of that.

Here, equestrianism was never a reference. It was the architecture.

It’s the kind of place where barn life, wellness and style all exist in the same rhythm. You finish a morning in the saddle, head to lunch, and no one thinks twice about the breeches and boots. Equestrianism goes far beyond the sport here. You feel it in the textures, the architecture, even the real estate.

I’ve always loved The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe. The Spanish exteriors, the Art Deco-inspired interiors, and the natural light that flatters everything and everyone. You could shoot a film here, an editorial, or come straight from the barn for a glass of bubbly. All of it feels at home.

FASHION AND THE HORSE

The history runs deep.

Hermès began as a harness-making workshop in Paris in 1837. Gucci turned the horsebit into one of the most recognizable pieces of fashion hardware. The Horsebit loafer arrived in 1953. Ralph Lauren has spent decades taking equestrian life far beyond the riding world, shaping a much broader idea of how people want to dress and live, with the horse woven naturally into that visual language.

The point is, these references don’t disappear. They simply move in and out of the spotlight.

E1 EQUESTRIAN + STELLAR CHEVAL

Stella McCartney made that connection impossible to miss at her Winter 2026 Paris show, where horses entered the arena before the models. The collection followed with stirrup pants, riding boots and clear nods to the sport.

I have a soft spot for the name, by the way. I was named after my grandmother.

For those of us who ride, none of this is particularly new. It has been building for years, and 2026, the Year of the Horse, simply gave it a name.

THE WAY I WEAR IT

The best equestrian style should never be too literal.

I love a blazer worn open with Japanese denim, a stiletto heel and either an equestrian pin on the lapel or a horse-detail belt at the waist to bring in a touch of prep. Fitted breeches with loafers are timeless, and something ethereal paired with beautiful horse hardware takes the idea in a completely different direction.

The fun starts when I take one element from the sport and drop it somewhere completely unexpected. Think Balmain sheer trousers, a cotton tee and a horse belt. Clean, sculptural lines against one unmistakable detail from the horse world.

That’s where it gets interesting, and I’ve been doing some version of this for a long time.

When I was a child, my mother bought me a pair of Bonpoint loafers in Paris. Little Stella decided they needed tiny horse charms.

My background has moved through modeling, fashion, film and high-performance athletics, but horses have always been the constant. That mix has shaped the way I look at E1 Equestrian and Stellar Cheval.

Our brand philosophy across both houses is simple: “The horse is our muse.”

Our technical clothing is designed to perform while you ride. That part is non-negotiable. But I also don’t want to feel like I need to change my entire identity when I leave the barn. That comes down to the cut and the fabric, the details serious labels obsess over.

BEHIND THE LOOK

For this shoot, I styled our model, Taylor Morgan, who wears E1’s Moon Dust Gray technical set and the Stargold horse belt, named after one of our favorite jumping horses. I paired the look with snakeskin-embossed leather loafers in white, silver and charcoal.

It’s a contrast I love. The clothes are streamlined and athletic, but the styling takes them somewhere else.

E1 EQUESTRIAN + STELLAR CHEVAL

Bruno Diniz das Neves, a Portuguese professional show jumper competing at FEI level, wears E1’s Men’s Technical Riding Shirt in our custom fabric print. On him, it’s doing exactly what I designed it to do: perform in the saddle, then move with him into the rest of his day.

He could finish at the barn, keep the breeches and E1 shirt on, swap his boots for a pair of all-black Air Jordan 4 Retro sneakers and meet friends without changing anything else.

That crossover between equestrian sport and the life around it is where E1 and Stellar Cheval really come together.

The Inn gave us the right backdrop for that reason. We didn’t need to invent an equestrian world around the clothes. Nothing about the setting reads as constructed.

BEYOND THE MOMENT

It is easy to see why designers are drawn to equestrianism. The lines are clean, the tailoring sharp. The leather, the boots, the bits. Even performance wear has a particular polish.

But I think there’s something else people respond to.

There is a unique combination of power and calm in horses. The sport requires discipline, physicality and control, but also sensitivity. You can’t really fake any of it, and you don’t have to ride to recognize that energy.

Maybe that’s why the horse keeps finding its way back into fashion. The clothes evolve, the proportions shift, and someone inevitably announces a revival. But the codes themselves are remarkably permanent.

Which brings me back to black.

The best things don’t need to be reinvented every season. Sometimes they’re good precisely because they weren’t designed for a moment.

Rancho Santa Fe understands that instinctively. Nobody built this lifestyle because the wider culture rediscovered horses. It was already here.

ABOUT STELLA

Stella is the founder and creative director of E1 Equestrian and Stellar Cheval, a technical riderwear label and the lifestyle house built around the world of the horse. A former model and athlete who trained under Olympic coaches, she is also a Penguin Random House author. She works between Southern California and Europe, two places that have long shaped her point of view on sport, fashion and modern equestrian life.