When Meryl Streep stepped out in Bared Footwear's studded Mino Boot during The Devil Wears Prada 2 press tour, it looked like a brand having its moment. Anna Baird, who founded the comfort footwear label 18 years ago, would say it was something slower and less glamorous than that: a stylist relationship, years in the making, finally paying off.
That distinction matters to Baird. The Streep moment landed just weeks after Alix Earle wore Bared's Hillstar Knee High Boot on Day One of Coachella 2026, paired with micro shorts and a Roberto Cavalli bustier in the California desert heat – another relationship, another stylist, another moment that arrived rather than was engineered.
Both came ahead of Australian Fashion Week, where Bared secured three runway partnerships, hosted an intimate celebrity lunch at Le Foote with Elle Ferguson, and had backstage staff wearing the brand – a level of visibility that would read as a calculated campaign for most labels.
For Baird, it was the result of the same philosophy that's driven the business since the beginning: build genuine relationships, and let the moments follow.
"AFW this year felt like a culmination of that," she says. "It wasn't about forcing visibility; it was about the right people genuinely wanting to work with us."
The approach is almost countercultural in a media environment that rewards reach and volume. Rather than chasing placements or engineering activations, Bared has spent years backing creatives, supporting stylists, and investing in talent who already wear and believe in the product. The Ferguson lunch was deliberately small – a curated guest list, a warm room, real conversations – at a time when Fashion Week's bigger activations were competing loudly for the same attention.
"There's so much noise during Fashion Week, and sometimes the bigger the activation, the less meaningful the connection becomes," Baird says. "Bared has always been relationship-driven. We're not trying to be the loudest brand in the room."
The Streep placement illustrated the same principle at a global scale. It came through a relationship with the actor's stylist – a genuine product endorsement from someone who'd chosen Bared because they trusted it. "Celebrities and stylists have endless options," Baird notes. "When someone chooses to wear Bared because they genuinely love the product and can spend hours in the shoes comfortably, that's incredibly validating."
Baird is clear-eyed about what those moments can and can't do for a business. High-profile placements – Streep, Alix Earle, the AFW runway – generate immediate spikes in traffic, social engagement, and sell-through on specific styles. But she's equally clear that attention and loyalty are different things, and that confusing the two is a trap.
"You can't build a lasting brand purely on celebrity moments," she says. "Retention comes down to great product and customer experience."
After 18 years, Baird says she remains obsessive about comfort, fit, and wear-testing – the functional rigour that built Bared's reputation before any celebrity wore it. The customer experience is treated with the same seriousness. When a new customer finds the brand through a headline moment, the work is in what happens next.
"If you get that right, the customer stays long after the headline disappears."