Hailey Bieber Keeps Reaching for the Same Australian Flip Flop, and the Internet Finally Noticed

On a shh Greek holiday, one shoe choice did more to spotlight Melbourne label A.EMERY than any campaign could.

Hailey Bieber has spent part of her summer in Greece with husband Justin Bieber and their young son, Jack Blues, splitting time between the Peloponnese and the nearby island of Spetses. Reports place the family staying in the Ermionida region of Argolis, using the town of Kranidi as a base for day trips around the Saronic Gulf, a version of a family holiday built more around privacy than public appearances. That did not stop one outfit from traveling well beyond Greece.

For a seaside stroll, Bieber leaned into a pared back look that has become something of a signature for her: a fitted white cropped top with a subtle V neck and backless detail, a black midi skirt from Paris label Alfie Paris, a small woven bag by The Row, oval sunglasses, and a zig zag headband. The whole thing landed somewhere between beach errand and old money archive, the kind of look that has drawn comparisons to Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s minimal, unfussy nineties style more than once in Bieber’s own wardrobe history.

But it was her shoes that traveled furthest. Bieber slipped into the Kinto sandal by Australian label A.EMERY, a minimalist black leather flip flop with a gently squared toe and a sleek, unfussy shape, retailing for $180. It is a quiet detail in a low key outfit, and that quietness is exactly the point.

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This was not a one off. Bieber has stepped out in the Kinto before, including for a casual date night in Beverly Hills where she paired the same black colorway with stovepipe jeans, a vintage sweatshirt, and jewelry from Jessica McCormack. She is far from the sandal’s only famous fan. Model Elsa Hosk made the Kinto a fixture of her maternity wardrobe during a recent pregnancy, documenting a run of looks in the suede version across her Instagram. Fashion editors have since taken to describing the Kinto as one of the more durable footwear obsessions of the past few seasons, a rare flip flop treated less like a fleeting trend and more like a long term wardrobe investment.

That staying power sets it apart. Fashion cycles a new “it” sandal past shoppers every season, but a shoe that a specific person reaches for more than once, across different outfits and different years, tends to say more about the shoe than any single red carpet moment could. The Kinto has become that kind of ref point inside Bieber’s rotation, alongside other quiet Australian and downtown New York names that make up her go to wardrobe.

The Kinto also arrived into a crowded field and still managed to carve out its own space. When The Row’s red and black Dune flip flops became a genuine fashion moment a couple of years back, industry watchers wondered whether any other minimalist thong sandal could compete with that level of fervor. The Kinto’s answer was not to compete directly but to sit quietly alongside it, appealing to a similar audience without chasing the same hype cycle. A.EMERY’s other bestsellers work the same way. The Jalen, a single toe strap sandal with straps that wrap casually around the ankle, has been a fixture of the brand’s range since its earliest days, while the Nolan takes a similar wrap around approach with thinner straps. None of them are loud shoes. All of them have shh become wardrobe staples for people who write about clothes for a living, which tends to be a more reliable predictor of longevity than any single celebrity sighting.

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A.EMERY is the work of Australian designer Anna McLaren, who launched the label in Melbourne in 2017 after a frustratingly specific search: a simple, all black, lace up sandal at a price that did not feel unreasonable. Unable to find exactly what she wanted, McLaren built it herself, self funding a tightly edited, footwear only collection that started small and stayed intentionally slow growing. There was no elaborate business plan behind the launch, just a wardrobe gap McLaren decided to fill on her own terms.

McLaren has said the brand’s evolve since then has happened organically rather than by design. What began as a footwear only offering slowly expanded into ready to wear, launching a debut clothing collection in 2023 despite, by her own account, being warned against it by industry figures who thought it was too risky a move. She has described her decision to push ahead as less about strategy and more about genuine attachment to apparel, the part of the industry where her career actually began. The brand’s current range includes soft tailor, knits, and minimalist accessories, all built around McLaren’s consistent instinct for pieces designed to disappear seamlessly into daily life rather than announce themselves.

McLaren has also been candid about what running the label day to day actually looks like, describing her own wardrobe as almost entirely flats, a practical choice given how much of the year Australians spend in sandals. She has pointed to pieces like the brand’s Innes skirt and Goddard pant as personal cornerstones, paired with a soft merino knit, a description that lines up closely with the kind of understated, repeatable outfit Bieber herself wore in Greece. It is the sort of alignment that tends to happen when a designer genuinely wears her own product rather than treating it purely as a business.

The label’s growth has not come at the expense of staying small in spirit. A.EMERY has described its five year mark, and the years since, as humbling rather than triumphant, the kind of milestone that comes with exhaustion alongside pride. One of the highlights McLaren has pointed to repeatedly is not a press mention or a retail deal but the simple experience of seeing strangers wearing the brand’s shoes on the street, a detail that fits neatly with how the Greek sighting played out: unplanned, unpaid, and only notable because someone happened to be paying attention.

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Ethical production sits at the center of A.EMERY’s identity as much as its minimalism does. The label’s sandals are handcrafted in the Delhi region of India, while its boots are made in the Veneto region of Italy using locally sourced leather, and its ready to wear is produced in China. According to the brand, many of the relationships behind those partnerships predate A.EMERY itself, built through annual factory visits and long standing collaborations rather than one off sourcing deals. Leather is procured exclusive through Leather Working Group certify tanneries, and the brand says its partner factories are audited annually against standards covering above living wage pay, safe working conditions, anti discrimination policies, and legal age requirements.

That combination of restraint and rigor has carried A.EMERY well past its original niche. The label is now stocked at Net a Porter, Harrods, Mytheresa, Goop, Harvey Nichols, Luisa Via Roma, Lane Crawford, Galeries Lafayette, and Saks, a retail footprint considerably larger than its self funded, single sandal origin story would suggest. Along the way it has also built a collaborative relationship with fellow Australian label Matteau, providing footwear for Matteau’s first runway show back in 2019, a partnership that has continued in the years since.

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None of this was really the point of the Biebers’ trip, which by most accounts has been deliberately low key. The couple has been spotted strolling the narrow streets of Spetses, stopping for photos when approached by locals and visitors but otherwise keeping a fairly private profile, staying at the Amanzoe resort in Kranidi and making stops at local coffee shops and a traditional fish tavern along the way. It is the kind of holiday built around a toddler’s schedule and a family’s need for a break rather than a fashion week itinerary, and Bieber’s outfit read that way too: comfortable, practical, easy to walk in on cobblestones, and only fashion news because someone happened to recognize the shoes.

That is, in a way, the most effective kind of endorsement a brand like A.EMERY can get. There was no campaign, no gifted product unboxing, no tagged Instagram partnership. Just a woman on holiday reaching for a sandal she has already worn before, in a country nowhere near Australia, photographed by someone who happened to notice.

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Bieber’s own relationship to brand building gives this small sandal moment an extra layer of interest. She is the founder of skincare label Rhode, which launched in 2022 around the “glazed donut skin” aesthetic she had already popularized on social media, and which was acquired by e.l.f. Beauty in a deal reported at roughly one billion dollars. Rhode itself expanded into Australia earlier this year with a launch event in Sydney, meaning Bieber’s connection to the Australian market runs slightly deeper than a single pair of sandals. She has spent the past several years positioned at the intersection of personal style and personal brand, someone whose everyday wardrobe choices get parsed with the same scrutiny usually reserved for red carpet looks.

Seen from that angle, a quiet Greek sidewalk photo carrying an Australian label’s name a little further into the wider fashion conversation is a fairly small thing. But small things travel fast when the person wearing them has spent years building an audience that pays close attention to exactly what she reaches for, on holiday or otherwise.