A.Emery

A.Emery

Anna McLaren interned at The Row, spent 2014 to 2017 designing womenswear at the Australian retailer Witchery, and launched A.Emery in Melbourne in 2017 with six sandal styles, all of them entirely black. It is still self-funded.

Shoes

The founding product was a lace-up sandal with the upper, insole and outsole all in the same black, which was the specific gap McLaren had identified. That is the whole brand in one object: refined minimalism with nothing decorative left on it. She ran the business alone for the first couple of years.

More Shoes

The Matteau relationship is the most interesting thread. A.Emery was asked to supply footwear for Matteau's first runway show, staged in 2019, the founders met on a joint sales trip in Paris in January 2020 and agreed over lunch to design together, and the collaboration sandals arrived in 2022 as an ongoing line. Ready-to-wear followed around 2023, then bags.

Our honest take

Now stocked at Net-a-Porter, Harrods and Mytheresa, still self-funded, still a small Melbourne team. Buy the sandals, which are the brand at full strength, and treat the clothing as a reasonable extension rather than the reason to be here. There are no awards and it has never needed any.