Emmy Scarterfield

"I believe that the most incredible thing you can wear is confidence."

A passion for shoes & accessories

Emmy Scarterfield, is an acclaimed shoes designer, creative director and founder of Emmy London. She lives in North London with her husband Dickie, who she co owns and runs the business with, and their twin girls. After graduating from Cordwainers college Emmy quite literally hot footed it to Milan for 5 years where she designed shoes and bags for some of the biggest fashion houses in the world. Missing home, she headed back to London with an uncertain future but bursting with ambition, confidence and passion for her honed craft.

Whilst freelancing for well-known British brands who’d made great progress with clothing, but yet to crack accessories Emmy leveraged her design, sourcing, production and distribution services. However, it didn’t take long for her to fall out of love with facilitating someone else’s ideas and so she set about finding a niche to launch her own label. During one particular trip to a Spanish factory which presented her with lots of time hanging around for shoes to be finished, she played out her business plan for bespoke bridal shoes. Why bespoke? It made perfect business sense to initially only make what she’d sold.

Why Bridal?

Not only was it a gap in the market, it suited Emmy’s skill set, experience in luxury fashion and obsession with attention to detail. On the flight home she promised herself that if she still thought it was a good idea when she landed, she’d just go for it. Emmy considers that her light-bulb moment, although her passion for shoes was born many years before. One of her first memories is from when she was around 2 years old, Emmy put wooden building blocks in her socks to create her own high heels. It was the clip cloppy noise on the hard floor that ignited her love affair with shoes and her ambition to become a shoe designer.

15 years on and the business is going from strength to strength, grown organically by Emmy, Dickie and an amazing team they call the ‘Emmy Family’. The collection has evolved way beyond bridal and offers ‘off the shelf’ designs as well as their ‘Made To Order’ offer which is still very much at the heart of their philosophy.

Emmy’s had many a ‘pinch me’ moments along the way, she finds working hard means that sometimes it’s tricky to acknowledge and celebrate the ‘done list’ and not to focus on the ‘to do’ list. A few that she takes time to digest are;

- Moving from what they affectionately refer to as a cupboard in Islington where they could only do sales appointments one to one to a beautiful flagship boutique in Chelsea’s Luxury lifestyle quarter.

- Having some of the most famous women in the world choose her shoes, appreciating the attention to silhouette, comfort and balance and how that makes them feel confident whatever the occasion.

- Emmy London was chosen to design a diamond jewellery collection for the biggest jewellery company in the world and is now sold across the UK, US and Canada