A year ago, Victora Price was leading Alvarez & Marsal’s private capital team, while Ashley McPherson had just taken a new product lead job at The Couture Club. Now the two are about to embark on the ambitious launch of a new luxury womenswear retailer, Emello.
After over 20 years working in professional services – first at EY and then with Alvarez & Marsal, Victoria Price had worked with and advised some of the biggest names in retail and consumer products.
After leaving EY in 2024, Price also began investing in brands and taking up non-executive director roles on boards. In other words, she has been involved in retail in almost every way other than as a retailer herself.
But as Price says, she’d always wanted to set up a brand herself.
“It was the end of last year, around Christmas time, when a few things that had really been percolating away in my thought process came together,” Price says of Emello’s founding.
“I’d go to industry events all the time. And, increasingly, women of a similar age to me were making off-the-cuff comments to me like, ‘oh my God, I feel really overdressed’.
“Younger women like dressing more casually, but for older women, it was always a nightmare being invited to a ‘business casual’ event. Are we dressing up? Are we putting heels on? Or is it trainers?”
It was the lightbulb moment and nine months later, Emello is set to open pre-orders for its first collection on September 20, ahead of its official launch on October 1.
Price’s brainchild, Emello is a womenswear brand combining the luxurious materials of a high-end fashion house with the ease and comfort of an athleisure brand, at a similar price point.
Think The Frankie Shop meets Adanola. Think Italian cashmere, but starting at a £100.
“There are all these fantastic brands like Adanola and Alo Yoga that are really speaking to women aged between 18 and 35. But once you get beyond that, you don’t want to dress like you’re going to the gym,” Price adds.
“I saw a gap which isn’t being met. A gap for women that are successful, that really care about looking put together but want the comfort that 20-somethings are taking for granted”.
Womenswear made by women
For all her industry expertise, Price knew she still needed someone with the practical buying and merchandising experience that she lacked. So, she began tapping her contacts in the industry. Which is where she found co-chief executive Ashley McPherson.
McPherson started her career in fashion at The Gap and F&F, before moving into buying with PrettyLittleThing. She joined Missguided in 2017, before becoming head of buying at ISawItFirst in 2021.
“I had just started a new role at The Couture Club and wasn’t really looking for anything,” remembers McPherson. “I’m sure if I’d stayed there, I’d have enjoyed it. But Victoria got in touch with her idea, and we just talked and talked.
“I remember coming off that call, and ringing my dad and telling him that I think my life and career has just changed. It felt like the right time to start out on something that was mine, where I could make the decisions and really help shape the direction of a new brand”.
It’s been a whirlwind for both Price and McPherson. With the concept of the brand down, they then embarked on bringing in the best people they could to make it a reality.
As an exclusively pureplay brand, Price knew the first part of the puzzle was to sort its digital strategy. So, she poached digital director Ben Yarwood from Levi & Strauss.
Other hires include head of merchandising Rebecca McDonagh, formerly of PrettyLittleThing, ISawItFirst, and Frasers, and one of Price’s former EY protégés Courtney Shields to head up marketing.
“It’s about taking away pain points, both for employees and our customers”
Victoria Price, founder, Emello
Emello now has 10 full-time employees, nine of whom are women, which both Price and McPherson say was an important part of building the team. It’s also shaped the ethos of the brand: both for its employees and for how it views its customers.
Emello has committed to always offering fully flexible working for staff, at a time when many retail brands are moving away from that.
Price and McPherson have also committed Emello to a zero-alcohol policy for work, in direct contravention of many brands in fashion where, as McPherson says, a “Wolf of Wall Street vibe” still proliferates.
“It’s about taking away pain points,” Price says. “Both for employees and our customers. A lot of athleisure brands target women with loungewear, sat in front of the TV.
“Actually, that’s not the lives of the women I know. They never have time to sit because they’re working, they’re running errands, they’re doing the school run, they’re meeting friends for coffee.
“There isn’t really a brand speaking to that – for successful women who want to be comfortable but are also constantly on the move”.
Standing out from the crowd
While Emello has its target audience all figured out, it’s still a less-than-propitious time to be launching a new womenswear brand.
The travails of mid-market fashion are well known at this point. Luxury, once seemingly immune to global economic fluctuations, has also taken a bit of a nosedive this year.
So, why launch a new brand into that mix now?
“We know that fast fashion is on a sharp downward trend,” says McPherson. “The consumer in general wants and deserves better quality. Customers are genuinely changing how they purchase and how they buy products. And what they want from those products. People want to buy less and buy better.”
Price agrees, adding: “I always joke about it, if you wait for the perfect time to have a baby, you’d never have one.” She laughs. “It’s the same with starting a business. You can’t let the perfect moment stand in the way of seizing an opportunity”.
While launching online only, Emello already has grand international plans. The brand will be launching as well in Ireland, the UAE, and several other European markets. Price says she also sees opportunities in both Japan and Australia.
“Everyone is just really excited about the future and our plans, we wish we could show what we’re working on now. But that’ll have to wait”
Ashley McPherson, co-founder, Emello
One region Price and McPherson would love to launch in, but has been put on the back burner for the time being, is the USA. “The tariffs situation there is obviously a problem at the moment,” Price says.
“We’ve got the advantage so we don’t have to focus on it from day one. We can afford to wait, and give the market time to adjust. Importers will start repricing, and we’ll get to sit back and see what the tolerances to that are in the market and then launch once the dust has settled”.
While Emello will start as a pureplay brand, Price and McPherson haven’t ruled out a more omnichannel approach in future. Rather than looking at stores and concessions though, Price says the brand will look to do several ‘trunk sales’ in key international markets first.
“We don’t think we’ll do the kind of pop-up thing,” Price says. “But we do think we can do well with these very high-end, invitation-only in-person events”.
While the brand will be launching with its 42-piece autumn/winter range, McPherson and Price are already looking ahead to spring/summer 2026.
“Everyone is just really excited about the future and our plans,” McPherson says with a smile. “We wish we could show what we’re working on now. But that’ll have to wait”.
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