There’s a certain kind of Sydney glamour that can’t be bought. It’s collected, layered, lived in. Perched above the water in Elizabeth Bay, Emma Gott and Cameron MacDonald’s apartment feels like the set of a film you never want to end: olive-green carpet underfoot, disco glints in the bathroom, vintage silhouettes softened by salt air and family life. Part Miami Vice, part The Last Days of Disco, the home is an extension of the couple themselves. It’s sensual, instinctive, a little decadent.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor with Lucy Folk, the harbour glittering in the background, the conversation drifts between old friendships, design obsessions, parenthood, and the daily rituals that turn a beautifully curated apartment into something more real: a home with soul.
LF: So, we've known each other a long time. What a beautiful relationship it is. Can you describe our first meeting Em?
EG: I think you came into the office when I was working at EVH (PR). We looked after your brand, and you came into the office, and I thought: “She is so cool”. And you had your own cabinet in the showroom.
LF: I had a cabinet that I hid all my colourful things in.
EG: So it was through work, and then I lived in Bondi. You were living in Bondi, and we just all started hanging out outside of work.
LF: Going to the Fish Shop, having cute swims at sunset. So romantic. So, can you tell us about your wonderful business, what your forte is in life?
EG: I have always tried to figure out what it is, but it's a studio. We do PR and communications through a creative lens here in Sydney. And I'm very lucky to call Lucy Folk a client, one of my oldest clients, actually, and dearest.
LF: Feeling’s mutual.
EG: Yeah, so that's what I do when I'm not being a Mum.
LF: How old is your daughter Maisy?
EG: She's nearly one. She’s the love of our lives. Every day we look at her getting older and think, did you get more beautiful over night? I wish that happened to me.
LF: Wait till you look back on photos, and then you’re kind of like, “Oh my God. I thought you were so cute yesterday, and they got cuter and cuter and cuter”. We’re in your beautiful new house, which we are here to talk about. Your second love child.
EG: Yeah, second that we've done together.
LF: And Cam is here in a wonderful outfit, as always.
CM: Always trying my hardest.
LF: You guys are love birds from way back.
CM: Yeah, 10 years, next year. It is a decade of love.
LF: So romance is key, yes, and sensuality. I feel like the apartment that you've created alongside Tamsin (Johnson) is very sexy. It's like kind of The Last Days of Disco meets the glorious vistas of Sydney. Can you tell me about the project, your highs and lows?
CM: I think the low was the construction process. Everyone has them.
LF: Especially when it's all custom, custom, custom.
CM: Yeah, it’s really enjoyable at the beginning, when you see them bashing everything apart – progress is so quick. And then it's really enjoyable at the very end, when everything starts going in, but everything in between totally sucks. But that's okay. When you have someone like Tamsin to work with, it makes the journey a little bit smoother.
EG: I can't read a plan, so if Tam shows me a plan, I’ve got to see and touch it.
LF: It’s like building collections with your clients, essentially, like building a world, and you're communicating on that world, those visuals.
CM: Emma is like Raf Simmons when it comes to interiors. You know how Raf needs to make the garment and do everything, and until he actually sees it, it’s hard to make a decision.
EG: Thank God someone can read a plan.
CM: Yeah, to do an interior like that takes a specific building, a specific space, The building is near 100 years old, so there's a lot of original details in it. They give it charm.
LF: It’s contextualising it, because it’s like you're modernising it. But the bones are so extraordinary; it sort of has that energy and history.
CM: Yes! Besides the fact that you've got olive-oil green carpet everywhere, it's about having that contrast between the beautiful cornices and mouldings, and the very 1970s-inspired interior.
LF: Do you think if you could have thrived in another era it would have been the 70s?
CM: Oh, we talk about this all the time. We feel like we should have lived our glory days in that 20-year period from the mid 60s to the mid 80s. Everything from fashion to cars to architecture to interiors.
CM: It just inherently us and who we really are.
LF: You're not a straight leg, you're a flair. There's a lot of gold-rimmed energy.
EG: So, when we originally bought the apartment, Maisy was like, maybe an idea.
CM: We never knew it was going to be so good. Fuck, she has exceeded all expectations.
EG: But we designed not really as a family home. And then we found out we were having Maisy, and were like, we're not going to change anything – but we did have to give up the wardrobe.
CM: Yeah. We had to give up a bedroom, a small sacrifice.
LF: I mean, it's cosy. What an excellent addition she is to your beautiful family.
EG: A lot of people come in and say, “How does this go with a baby?” But it’s actually the dream.
CM: She falls over and never hurts herself. Carpet everywhere. We went to a place with tiled floors and rattan rugs, and she looked at us, like, “What have you just done to me? This isn't a holiday for me”.
LF: So, tell me about your favourite parts of the apartment
CM: The safari sofa in front of the bar.
LF: And who designed that?
CM: That was by Archizoom for Poltronova – it's an iconic piece. It was designed in 1968, but I don't think it was produced until the 70s. It's in the Centre Pompidou. It’s an original piece, and we had a vintage furniture dealer who sourced it for us overseas. Super lucky to have found that.
LF: It’s a real conversation starter. You have this incredible home, but it's also an extension of you guys, and it's this place to entertain and really, like, invite people into your world. You guys have obviously curated such an eclectic mix of things, but it's comfortable.
CM: Yeah, that's totally liveable. It’s been done to feel vintage, not perfect, yeah? Like, the cornices, as I said, they are not perfect, and they're not meant to be perfect. And the upholstery isn't perfect. They don't look like they're 50 years old, but they look like they've been in your home, and they've been used and that's the whole point of it.
EG: I love the idea, and I'm the same with fashion. I love when a piece has had its own little life before us, and then it's got a new life in a new environment. I'm finding that a lot with personal style – everything's becoming so the same. And it's the same with homes. I don't know if that's an Instagram thing or…
LF: Well, there's trends, but that’s why collecting vintage pieces, or creating custom elements are so key now, I think, to an interior, because you have to make your mark.
CM: We just found a place down the road that sells old Murano glass ashtrays that are really cool. It's things like that.
EG: I'm not someone that has a Pinterest board or references or anything. It's just a feeling. We just got the carpet, and it took us on this journey. We had the cutest date night on Saturday too. Cam got a bottle of wine and put some incense on, and we had a little cheese and chocolate. We just sat on the ground. Every morning, we have some little rituals. Like, we get up and I make a cacao and we drink it in bed…
LF: You can't be precious.
CM: We've got this beautiful unit in our bedroom, I can't remember who the designer is, but it's beautiful and the stainless-steel kick plate on the bottom has a sort of history and love marks on it.
EG: It’s the same with my clothes. I really wear things. I don't save things for special occasions, and I think that our house, you want to live in it and enjoy it.
LF: It’s funny you say that because I feel like you guys will wear a wild outfit during the day, and it could just be just for a sort of casual encounter. But that reflects in the apartment too. You're not afraid to be who you are at any time of day. I think often people save their amazing things for an occasion. But your space is comfortable and it's unapologetically fabulous, and that's you guys in a nutshell.
EG: So true. It's like people that have children and then they just change everything about themselves, like I've had a child, so now I can't be who I want to be?
LF: With Tam, I think what's so amazing about working with her is obviously you guys have a personal relationship. And when you have those relationships, you get a better result, because you feel comfortable with each other, and you can push the boundaries. Did you find that?
CM: Oh yeah, 100 per cent – and she's so quick. There's just no hesitation, it’s just a yes or no. She's brilliant.
LF: I think it's so much more fun to collaborate with your friends, because you spend so much time working that if you can have these fun times with the people around you outside of work it all becomes such a pleasure. We're always laughing so much when we have our meetings. You want to be able to joke around and enjoy the process.
EG: I love collaborating, and I think the apartment and working with Tam was a real collaboration of ideas. She's just so good at adding that extra layer. Like in the bathrooms, the little tiles, they’re like a stainless-steel mosaic, and they kind of have a bit of a disco vibe.
CM: And the stools that she designed at the bar – she designed them – they were custom made.
LF: You‘ve talked about morning rituals in the space, but how do you end the day?
CM: I have a bit of a ritual that I like to do. I just like to fluff cushions, clean, laugh, and dim the light.
LF: Are you a morning or a night person?
CM: Oh, the sunrises here are phenomenal. We've both seen a lot of sunrises in our life, but there was this particular one, one of our first mornings here, and we came in and it was literally like…
EG: Like we’d taken acid…
CM: Yeah, like we’d taken acid and we were in Miami Vice. All of the colours, you couldn’t capture it in a photo. It was like, 100 times less impressive than what it was in real life. But what’s your ritual darling?
EG: My ritual would be in the morning. We wake up, Maisy comes into the bed. I feed her because I'm still breastfeeding, which is so special. My God. She's like, so happy just to hang out in bed.
To experience RUSSH Home Issue 05 in its entirety, it will be available on newsstands from Monday 27 July 2026 and through our shop. Find a stockist near you.
