Page 45

Emmy Scaterfield

Interview Phadria Prendergast

When you think of luxury bridal shoes and accessories, you think Emmy Scaterfield. The UK based shoe designer spoke with WOTC about the route it all began from and mentorship.

P: What led you into bridal? Was it always bridal? Did you see another route, or has it always been bridal for you?

E: So yeah, the bridal thing is interesting but it’s not how I would really like to identify the brand exclusively. My main thing is that I make beautiful shoes, make women look beautiful. To look beautiful but also feel beautiful and confident and comfort is a really, really big factor in that and it just so happens that the shopping objective then is more driven to those big occasions one of them being, weddings. For our collection we have such a breadth of style, colour, heel heights but super sensible to the show stopping embellished styles. But really, they can be for any occasion, that mi

Just because I figured what I was offering was bespoke shoes, and the kind of price points and things led them more to bridal and having worked in fashion previously, I kind of figured that actually to launch a branch without. A huge marketing budget. I was better off sticking to a niche rather than trying to conquer the world. So that was my thought process for bridal initially, that my skill set, and my price point were better suited to that luxury niche. I did go really niche; I was basically offering bespoke bridal shoes for the very high-end bridal market and you had to come to me personally in those days. So, it was really just the U.K Luxury wedding market, so it was like a niche within a niche. In retrospect it was a really good way to build a brand, not so much build a business. Scaling that was quite challenging and in those 16 years we’ve broadened our offer and broadened the accessibility of it so that bespoke or made to order is only sort of, part of what we do. 

P: You spoke about other businesses, fashion businesses, that you worked for prior to the one that you currently founded. Tell me more about that.

E: I started, I think, quite fortunate I’d say really. I did my degree in shoots and accessories which again is quite niche and so I think that’s always been a good solid starting point because I’ve never been without work. In my final year at college I did a placement at Billabong - I don’t know if you remember that, but it is still going, it was bigger then.  So, I did my placement there and actually the designer for the bags was actually going on maternity leave. It was sort of a slightly vague range – I did her maternity cover whilst still at college. So, my final collection was for them. It got shown at London Fashion week and stuff like that, it was quite daunting. I didn’t really, maybe, feel like I was asked if I was okay, but I just took the opportunity and made the most of it. So that was a really good starting point, because of that when I applied for my first job which was at Marks and Spencer’s they really wanted graduates that had already been working for 2 years. I sort of qualified because I had taken that opportunity with Billabong. I was fresh out of college, but they still deemed that good experience. I started at M&S as a junior accessories’ designer which if I’m completely honest, I absolutely hated.

P: Really?

E: Well I think what’s really important and I often, if I’m doing any work with young people now, I think work experience can be so misunderstood as something that you pursue that you’re interested in or you’re very exclusive about what you’re willing to do but actually. Half of the experience that’s really useful is learning what you don’t want to do - 

P: Yes, that’s very true. 

E: Or what actually doesn’t really suit you as a person or what really kind of makes you tick. Until that, you don’t know. I’m a real advocate of funding that out. When I was a student, I would do summers of cucumber picking and stuff like that, you obviously wouldn’t want to do that but I realised doing that physical work wasn’t actually very good at. 

P: [laughs] Really? Funny that.

E: Just not being creative, that was such a big lesson for me that doing a job that wasn’t creative in any way, I felt really frustrated. So at Marks and spencer’s I absolutely hated it in the sense that I quickly realised that what made me tick was actually the craftsmanship of the product and being very involved in the making process and experimenting with 3d things rather than just coming up with visuals and also that whole corporate structure I found really stifling/  I’d go into meetings and be asked not to speak, I don’t get it why am I in the meeting? So I found that really, really hard but in hindsight I fondly refer to it as being a finishing school because it really taught me the fundamentals of things in a professional environment and how to behave in a meeting and all of those things I hated at the time but were really very useful. 

P: Yes.

E: So I stayed with them for about a year, much to my parents annoyance because it was like a proper job it was Marks and Spencers, it felt on paper like I’d totally landed on my feet but I just felt like it wasn’t creative enough and like I said I wasn’t really designing products, I was basically making mood boards for the buyers to copy.  I didn’t really see where that was going to go. I upped and left, took a placement in Milan at Armani, as an accessories designer which was scary, I’d never actually been to Italy even though we learned Italian as part of our degree. I’d never been there on holiday or anything, so I didn’t really know what I was getting into, but it was like being thrown into the real hard and fast world of high fashion which makes up the majority of the economy in Milan. I think in hindsight, if I’d known what I was getting involved in I would have been more terrified but it was an amazing experience I worked with several people there. So, I worked for Armani and that was completely amazing in the sense that I spent all day everyday sketching. So, it was completely creative, but it was only very much focused on the beginning part of the process. It was quite junior. I worked there for a while then I moved to a designer called Stefan Johnson who is French but based in Milan. I was completely thrown in the deep end with that brand because they’d never done accessories before. 

P: So, you were there for 5 years?

E: Yeah

P: Wow

E: I mean like I said, it was an amazing experience, I’m really glad I did it. [laughs] I mean I was completely naïve to what I was getting involved in but it did shape my decisions for when I launched my own brand because I had a real understanding and had lived and breathed the kind of fastness and the cutthroat high-end fashion and what it takes. So, I came back to London with an amazing sense of freedom actually, because I’ve had all that experience under my belt, I’d lived in another country so I could just do what I want anywhere really. So, I settled in London, worked for a few brands as a freelancer that didn’t do accessories because I’d obviously got so much experience in terms of the production side as well. I did that for a bit, which was a real cushy number actually because I was earning good money, I had all those big names behind me, I wasn’t working full-time, so I had a really good life balance. I was spending time on myself, didn’t have any responsibilities and things, but I was basically fulfilling other people’s visions because I was working for clothing brands that knew what they wanted aesthetically but  I was facilitating their vision, which I found really boring in the end. Even though it was quite a cushy number, I decided at that point to launch my own brand. As I said before, bridal just seemed to be a good fit because I didn’t have loads of money behind me and I knew I needed to do something that was financially sustainable. That seemed like a good way to gently build a brand and that’s really what I focused on for the first few years really, just building, building that brand.

P: What can you tell us about consistency because you’ve been in this business for many years now, so how have you trained yourself to be consistent?

E: I think that’s an interesting one and not something that I’m conscious of, but I do think it’s a huge contributor to our success. The thing is, I haven’t tried to be anything that I’m not, I’ve been really consistent in that I design things that I like. I’m not particularly controversial in my taste. I just like really nicely made, tasteful things. So, I’ve just stayed really true to what I like in the hope and the knowledge that lots of other people like that too. Some of our designs fall into more fashionable but it’s not driven by fashion as such, it’s more about the passion for shoes and that drive to get the balance of beauty and comfort right all the time which is a continuous co-set of evolving ideas and perfecting. The reason I’m so passionate about comfort is that a lot of my competitors are men designing shoes for women, which I have nothing against but actually we’re all about women for women which I think has then really different perspective because everyone of us in my team have been out and have sore feet and knows how that feels and how that changes your perception of that event – how much you’ve enjoyed yourself. Before I had my brand, I had so many nights where I just was like this is so not worth it but I love the way that heels make you stand and instantly make you feel more attractive and confident and slimmer and all of those things that go with high heels. My mission was to see if we could get all of those feelings but not be in pain. 

P: Okay, I love that I love that.

E: Yeah so one of the things for, particularly for brides, obviously it’s a huge day and you’re wearing a long dress that we don’t really do that often now do, everything is slightly out your comfort zone but your shoes, even though you’re indulging in a dream pair of shoes, i encourage our brides to stay within their comfort zone, if you look comfortable you actually look more elegant. There’s nothing worse than tottering around, looking really unstable and in pain. You put so much emphasis on this one day you don’t want to look bad at one of the overriding memories as to omg my feet actually hurt so much. So, my mission when I launched particularly the bridal collection was that I just simply wanted to keep brides in their shoes. I’ve been to so many weddings where the bride takes their shoes off and I’m like oh, that’s such a shame they’ve gone for all these fittings and then it just looks really trashy, their dress gets dirty and next thing their feet get cuts. I just thought it can’t be that difficult to make a pair of shoes they just keep on for the duration. I’ve only just started talking about that openly and upwardly but interestingly all of our feedback from our brides is that they were the last ones in their shoes on the dancefloor at 5am or whatever. So, we have managed to achieve that mission. 

P: Finally, do you have a mentor or someone that advises you?

E: I don’t as such, no. I work with my husband which for us is the really positive dynamic. I’d quite like a mentor at times but we kind of balance each other out because we have really different skill sets. So, through every sort of challenge or opportunity, his perspective is very different to mine. The need to navigate or explore other people’s opinions or just support isn’t very often necessary. I wouldn’t rule out having a mentor for sure. He joined the business about 6, 7 years ago and I think at that point I was at a bit of a crossroads and a bit lost just in the overwhelming amount of work day-to-day but he’s quite strategic so he’s given me structure really to kind of approach things differently and in a more planned way.

P: I love that, is there anyone that you mentor? 

E: No, I have done a bit of work with local charities for youth groups and things because I feel really lucky that I do something I absolutely love. I think what’s slightly missing, or misconstrued with young people now, especially with social media and education, that you can create a successful career from what you’re passionate about, if you do it in the right way and it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight which I think is slightly mis portrayed on social media. So, I have done a bit of work and I’d be quite keen to do some more. You can follow your passion and do what you love, it doesn’t really feel like work, it’s just a way of life but it is hard work. It does take time; it does take commitment and it requires sacrifices and everything that goes along with that. I do a bit of work like that. The other thing is along the way of growing a business, I have had lots of highs and lows and opportunities for growth. What’s been quite grounding for me at different points is the knowledge that for me is that freedom is way more attractive and fulfilling to me than pure financial gain. 

P: Wow, yes absolutely.

E: So, I’ve done some work with business courses and stuff about just valuing, how you, what you value. Some people might just put their hands up and go. I don’t really care what I do as long as I make loads of money. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but I think it’s the perception from other people that business Is only successful if you’ve x amount of revenue. Actually, for me, it’s about being able to have a balanced life and freedom and creative freedom as well. So, it’s taken a few hoops to jump through for me to be confident in that route.