Emma Hill

Emma Hill is a British accessories and fashion designer whose career developed across Burberry, Liz Claiborne, Calvin Klein, Gap and Marc Jacobs. At Marc Jacobs she designed the Stella bag, establishing the combination of functional pockets, boxy construction and commercial clarity that would recur in her later work.

Mulberry announced Hill as creative director in December 2007, and she began in February 2008 with authority over leather goods, ready-to-wear, image and retail. Her studio launched the Alexa and Lily in 2010, the Del Rey in 2012 and the Willow in 2013, while runway shows at Claridge’s placed the products inside elaborate versions of British seaside, school and country imagery. Her resignation was announced in June 2013; Spring/Summer 2014, shown that September, was her final designed collection.

Hill later co-founded Hill & Friends with Georgia Fendley in 2015. The independent label retained her focus on accessible leather goods, distinctive locks and direct retail theatre, including immediate product availability and presentation formats built around character rather than corporate formality.

Hill treats accessories as the organising centre of a wider fashion image. A bag begins with recognisable function—satchel, shoulder bag, tote or briefcase—then gains character through scale, lock design, naming and the way it is carried. At Mulberry, individual objects were generally developed by the studio under her direction rather than presented as solitary sketches by one author.

Ready-to-wear, casting and set design were calibrated around those products. Subtle garment hardware allowed the Postman’s Lock to remain visible, while tweed, floral print, outerwear and slightly dishevelled styling made the bags part of a lived narrative. Tim Walker, Edward Enninful, Ronnie Cooke Newhouse and recurring set designers extended that logic from runway to campaign.

Hill & Friends translated the same attention to product personality into smiling closures, compact shapes and a direct-to-consumer rhythm. Across both houses, commercial accessibility and humour are built into construction rather than applied as a slogan.