Ten years ago, college friends Alexa Buckley and Sarah Pierson set out to reimagine women’s footwear, starting with a single ballet flat and a bold belief that women shouldn’t have to choose between beauty and wearability. Today, their beloved brand Margaux has become a brand worn by changemakers, creatives, and everyday women.
To celebrate Margaux’s anniversary, the team has launched a new ballet flat (The Fonteyn) that pays homage to their roots while stepping into the future. In many ways, the style is a love letter to the brand’s first chapter and with 16 variations, The Fonteyn honors some of Alexa and Sarah’s real-life muses, including cookbook author Alison Roman, the writer Suleika Jaouad, and the Hollywood writer and director Nicole Delaney.
We sat down with Alexa and Sarah to talk about legacy, color theory, creative collaboration, and what a decade of designing for women has taught them about friendship, business, and following your instincts.
When you think back to your early days dreaming up the brand, what were you hoping to change about women’s footwear?
It’s been quite a journey for us. From the very beginning, we’ve had an uncompromising belief that style, confidence, and comfort go hand in hand. We wanted to make shoes you could wear every day, everywhere. Ten years later, I think you can see some shifts, however small, in what people are wearing in real-time. Fewer women are carrying an extra pair of shoes with them, and flats are also very popular right now. We hope we were even just a minor part of that change in the culture.
With The Fonteyn, we wanted to return to Margaux’s original color wheel concept—one shoe, a rainbow of colors—in a way that felt emotional, playful, and fresh.
What inspired you to return to a “color wheel” with The Fonteyn?
When we first launched, Alexa and I were 21 and 22, and we had no business making shoes. We had dreamed of making the perfect ballet flat—a flat that we no longer have, called The Classic. It was an almond-toed, structured flat that we made in fifteen colors, and it was Margaux’s calling card for the brand's first chapter. We would have the fifteen colors displayed in a color wheel, and we had this terrible (though quite beautiful) website that we launched with in the beginning, where you had to spin the color wheel to pick your color.
When we landed on The Fonteyn, we thought, “Well, how fun would it be to bring back the color wheel?” We sat down with hundreds of swatches of leathers, satins, suedes—every material you can think of—and we put together the most inspiring combination. You have everything from a delicious butter satin to a beautiful (and very wearable) chocolate suede. We wanted to return to our founding spirit and love for color and fun.
We loved seeing writers, artists, and creatives featured in your campaign. What drew you to collaborate with women in the literary and creative world?
We work and touch so many women in these different creative worlds, so it made sense to us to reflect that in the campaign. We have such a deep respect for people who are moving through their fields authentically and expressively, and there’s no truer expression of the mission or the spirit of the brand than to highlight them.
How do these creative partnerships shape or inspire Margaux’s future collections?
We like to work with people who genuinely love Margaux, who understand the ease and effortlessness we want with all our shoes, but who can bring their own perspective to the table. That authenticity is paramount to us. You have to like the shoes—and really wear them. If anything, the successes of these partnerships and moments have made us even more ambitious about where we want to take the brand.
Do you have any advice to give to two friends dreaming up a business idea today?
This probably is overused, but listen to your instincts. And know that great brands and businesses really do take time. In a world that sometimes preaches instant success or gratification, it can be easy to forget that many of the best businesses have been built not just over years, but decades. That first, messy chapter—when you’re building and hustling and wearing so many hats—will test you in so many ways. But it will also teach you resilience, humility, and that what really, really matters are the people you surround yourself with and the values you rally around.