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THROUGH THE YEARS/2 MELLON AND SCHULMAN ON THE RECORD/4 THE MARKETING STRATEGY/12

In less than two decades, Jimmy Choo has transformed from a tiny label into a $230 million accessories powerhouse.Here, the light-up Zap shoe from spring

2009 that mimics a disco floor. For more Choo styles, see pages 10 and 11.

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WWD SPECIAL REPORT

1996• Tamara Mellon teams up with cus-tom shoe designer Jimmy Choo and establishes the Jimmy Choo com-pany in London. !

• The duo opens the first Jimmy Choo boutique on London’s Motcomb Street.

1999• Jimmy Choo has its first big red-carpet moment when Cate Blanchett wears a pair to the Academy Awards the year she is nominated for “Elizabeth.”

• The brand gets a major television plug when Sarah Jessica Parker’s character on “Sex and the City” says, “I lost my Choo.”

2001• Equinox Luxury Holdings Ltd. acquires Jimmy Choo, which at the time has four stores in the U.S. and the U.K. The transaction values the company around $30 million.

• Jimmy Choo exits from the company that bears his name.

• Robert Bensoussan joins the company as chief executive officer.

2002• Jimmy Choo kicks off its retail rollout at Harvey Nichols, with a new store and in-store shop concept designed by Milan ar-chitect Tiziano Vudafieri. It plans to open 15 freestanding stores over two years.

2003• The company opens flagships on Madison Avenue in New York and New Bond Street in London.

• Jimmy Choo launches a collection of handbags.

!

2004 • Equinox enlists NM Rothschild to explore strategic options for the luxury footwear brand that could include a possible sale, an initial public offering or a refinancing.

• Lion Capital, then known as Hicks Muse, acquires Jimmy Choo, valuing the company at 101 million pounds, or $187 million at the exchange rate of that time.

2005• Jimmy Choo opens its first boutique in Paris, on Avenue Montaigne.

2006• Jimmy Choo marks its first decade in business.

• The London brand inks a distribu-tion agreement with Murjani Group for India; it also forms Jimmy Choo Tokyo K.K., which it owns jointly with Bluebell Japan Ltd., to build the Japanese business.

• Jimmy Choo and Safilo Group sign a worldwide licensing agreement for Jimmy Choo sunglasses and prescription frames. !

2007• TowerBrook Capital Partners LLP snaps up Jimmy Choo in a deal that values the company at 185 million pounds, or $364.5 million at the ex-change rate of the time.

• Joshua Schulman joins the firm as ceo.

• Mellon becomes an investor in Halston, joining Harvey Weinstein on the board of the storied label.

• Jimmy Choo opens a 3,000-square-foot flagship on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, adding to the 22 U.S. shops at the time.

2008• Jimmy Choo opens its biggest store in Japan, in Tokyo’s Ginza neighborhood.

• Revlon Inc. adds Mellon to its board.

• The brand receives the British Fashion Council’s Brand of the Year Award, the ACE Accessory Council Excellence Awards Designer Brand of the Year and Footwear News’ Brand of the Year Award.

2009• Jimmy Choo is honored with the Nordstrom Partner in Excellence Award.

• The accessories firm launches Project PEP, a limited edition collection of handbags, shoes and small leather goods, in partnership with the Elton John AIDS Foundation to support the Simelela Centre in South Africa.

• The brand collaborates with Hunter for boots.

!

• The house collaborates with H&M on a collection, with hundreds of people lin-ing up outside stores to get their hands on Jimmy Choo designs at budget prices.

2010• Jimmy Choo launches Choo 24:7 Perfect Shoe Closet at retail, putting a fresh spin on some old favorites, including platforms, pointy-toe pumps and strappy evening stilettos at prices from $395 for a basic flat to $1,200 for the Glenys gladiator stiletto.

• The brand launches a collaboration with Ugg Australia, featuring sheepskin boots with studs, grommets and fringe details.

!

• Jimmy Choo opens its largest flagship in Europe, covering 2,505

square feet on two levels at the intersection of Milan’s

Via Sant’Andrea and Via Montenapoleone.

• Mellon is named an Offi cer of the British Empire

as part of the Queen’s birthday honors list.

• British Prime Minister David Cameron appoints Mellon Business Ambassador for Britain.

LOOKING TO 2011• The Jimmy Choo fragrance will launch at Jimmy Choo stores in January, followed by worldwide distribution in February.

!

• The company plans to add men’s shoes to its offerings in fall.

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Jimmy Choo Through the Years

The shop on Motcomb Street, London.

Tamara Mellon is named an Offi cer of the British Empire, 2010.

Handbags arrive in

2003.

Safi lo produces

Jimmy Choo

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Choo boots.

Fragrance will launch next year.

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The collaboration with Ugg Australia.

Jimmy Choo

Our 10022-SHOE Associates and

everyone at Saks Fifth Avenue congratulate

the Jimmy Choo company and founder

Tamara Mellon on their 15th Anniversary.

10022-SHOE

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Fifteen years ago, Tamara Mellon embarked on a journey that would make Jimmy Choo one of the best-known shoe names in the world. By Marc Karimzadeh and Lauren Benet Stephenson

Head Over HeelsIN THE EARLY NINETIES, TAMARA MELLON — THEN AN ENGLISH ROSE WITH the maiden name of Yeardye — regularly traipsed on her stiletto heels from London’s tony Hanover Square, where she was an accessories editor at British Vogue, to the gritty East End, where the atelier of Jimmy Choo, a Malaysian-born cobbler known for custom-made confections, was located.

Mellon had spotted Choo’s talent and often relied on him to make special pieces for the pages of the magazine. With the financial backing of her father, entrepreneur Tom Yeardye, she persuaded Choo to start a ready-to-wear shoe business.

In the 15 years since, the company has transformed from a tiny custom shoe label into a luxury accessories powerhouse that includes handbags, eyewear and other acces-sories. For 2011, annual sales are estimated by industry sources to be in excess of 150 million pounds, or $234 million at current exchange. Coming soon are a fragrance, men’s shoes and an expanded international retail presence.

In the process, Mellon herself has become a bona fide fashion entrepreneur. In June, she was named an Officer of the British Empire as part of the Queen’s birthday honors list for her contributions to the fashion industry, and last month was appointed a busi-ness ambassador for Britain by Prime Minister David Cameron.

And while Choo himself is no longer involved in the business, Mellon, who now has her main base in Manhattan, continues to work with his niece Sandra Choi, who has served as creative director from the get-go and who has been instrumental in helping Mellon make Jimmy Choo a favorite of Hollywood and beyond.

Sitting in her New York showroom with Jimmy Choo chief executive officer Joshua Schulman, Mellon reminisced about the early days, when she launched the brand and simultaneously opened a gem of a boutique on Motcomb Street in London’s Belgravia neighborhood.

Mellon, who started her fashion ca-reer with a clothing stall in Portobello market at the age of 18, recalled how she became acquainted with Choo, who was best known for making shoes for private clients, including the late Princess Diana,

who asked him to create satin pumps or slingbacks to match her evening dresses.“At that time there weren’t all the great shoes and bags, and accessories hadn’t re-

ally taken off the way we have them today,” Mellon said. “I would go down to Jimmy’s workshop and I’d say ‘OK, Jimmy, I’m doing a Grecian story and I want a gladiator san-dal with studs, and he’d make it. He could make whatever we wanted. If we were doing a roses story and we wanted to put roses on the shoes and couldn’t find what we were looking for, we could go down to Jimmy’s, and he’d make it. That went on for five years.”

Choo, who had followed in his father’s shoemaking business and made his first pair at age 12, went to England to study at the London College of Fashion, which was known as Cordwainers’ Technical College at the time. (“Cordwainer” is a 12th-century term describing shoemaking artisans.) He had intended to return to his home country, but, “I went home for a year,” he recalled in an interview with Footwear News in 1991, “but I had gotten used to the life here and came back.”

Choo carved out a niche for his made-to-measure shoes, which cost from about $290 to $835 in the early Nineties, and each hand-crafted creation took two to three weeks to make.

“All my shoes are handmade,” Choo said in that 1991 interview. “I had to aim for this market because women would not pay these prices for ready-to-wear shoes. The British market for designer shoes is not that large. Also, I want to maintain control. I do not want to pass my designs on to another manufacturer.”

Mellon, however, saw big retail potential, and in 1996, with 150,000 pounds (or about $234,000 at the exchange rate of that time) from her father, she approached Choo with a business proposition.

“I said, ‘Look, I’ll set up all operations, I’ll find factories in Italy to produce the shoes, roll out stores, I’ll do the wholesale distribution, p.r., marketing, sort of every-thing — but you design the collection,’” Mellon said.

Despite her efforts, the company had an inauspicious beginning. “I kept saying, ‘Jimmy, where are the sketches, where are the sketches?’ And the sketches never came,” Mellon said.

“I was young, and sort of naïve, and I didn’t realize how much input I was having when I got him to make the shoes,” Mellon reflected. “Jimmy can technically make a pair of shoes, but he didn’t have the creative vision to make a full collection, so that’s where I stepped in, and I did the collection.”

(Choo still makes bespoke shoes privately in London, and acts as an ambassador for organizations including the British Council and the University of the Arts London. His spokeswoman told WWD, “Mr. Choo sends his best wishes to the Jimmy Choo London team for the 15-year anniversary of the company.” Choo, who keeps a low profile and rarely speaks to the press, declined further comment.)

In retrospect, Mellon now knows that her lack of business acumen might have discouraged her from tackling such an endeavor, but she was too passionate about the product to give up.

“You’re so young and passionate that you just do it,” she said. “It’s your instincts about

WWD SPECIAL REPORT

“I wanted to have a sense of fun with the shoes, with colors, hardware and patterns. ”

— Tamara Mellon

Continued on page 6Joshua Schulman and Tamara Mellon

The Quiet model, in patent leather.

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Safilo Congratulates J I M M Y C H O O

on their 15th Anniversary

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6 WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2010

what’s right. I took a suite at the Crillon [in Paris] and we set it up. I’d literally call the buyers myself, make all the appointments, and then sit with them and hand-write the orders.

“I remember shoes in the early Nineties — they were much more boring,” Mellon noted. “I wanted to have a sense of fun with the shoes, with colors, hard-ware and patterns.”

Mellon set about transforming Jimmy Choo into a must-have brand for fashion insiders, who would soon be snapping up her strappy stiletto sandals. She opened boutiques in New York and Los Angeles in 1998 and 1999, respectively.

She also understood the allure of the red carpet, and how powerful it was be-coming in the consumer’s imagination.

“Women all over the world are fascinated with the Oscars, so whether you’re in Germany or Hong Kong, New York or London, everybody wants to know what the celebrities are wearing,” Mellon recalled. “I had the idea because I noticed the stylists were going around buying shoes to match the dresses, so I thought if I set up a service, then they can come in.…I took everything out in white satin so we could dye it any color.”

In 1999, Cate Blanchett wore Jimmy Choo shoes to the Academy Awards. “We knew it would have a big impact [in the U.S.], but I was surprised by the lack of in-terest in the U.K.,” Mellon said. “No one was interested except Hilary Alexander, fashion director of London’s Daily Telegraph, who wrote a piece with pictures of the actresses with the shoes, and after that, suddenly, it exploded, and everybody became interested.”

That same year, in an episode of “Sex and the City,” Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, Carrie Bradshaw, has a Cinderella moment when her lilac feather shoe comes off, and she exclaims “I lost my Choo” — which bestowed upon the brand the ulti-mate stamp of style approval.

Like the Oscars, Mellon said, the show reached so many women. “It’s hundreds of millions of people because the show is syndicated all over the world,” she said. “It turned us into a household name.”

So much so that investors began to take notice. Over the years, the company has been sold three times.

In April 2001, Equinox Luxury Holdings Ltd. bought out the shares of Jimmy Choo himself in a transaction that valued the company at about $30 million. Heading up Equinox was Robert Bensoussan, who became ceo of Jimmy Choo.

Shortly thereafter, Mellon applied the brand’s sexy DNA to the first collection of handbags as part of a plan to transform the label into a luxury lifestyle brand. “We always wanted to build a business that was bigger than shoes, and I had a vision for a woman that went beyond shoes,” Mellon said.

The launch of handbags, further retail expansion and continued interest by the high-profile Hollywood set also kept investors interested. In November 2004, Lion Capital bought a majority stake in Jimmy Choo, valuing the company at 101 million pounds, or $187 million at the exchange rate of that time. Just three years later, in 2007, it was sold again, this time to private equity firm TowerBrook Capital Partners with a deal that valued the company at 185 million pounds, or $364.5 million at the exchange rate of the time.

Mellon stayed on through the changes in ownership, and successfully expand-ed the brand into handbags, small leather goods and luggage — all produced in Italy — scarves, sunglasses and eyewear (with Safilo), while building a significant retail network.

Today, the company has 115 locations in 32 countries, the most recent major store having opened in Milan on Via Sant’Andrea at the corner of Via Montenapoleone.

Schulman noted, “We’ve been developing our retail presence significantly.…

In 2010 we will have opened 16 stores,” and renovated several others, the largest of which is in Milan.

“If you look at the stores of five to 10 years ago, they were really conceived as shoe boutiques, and so we’re renovating them as luxury lifestyle stores. Now we’re really showing the full breadth of what we’re doing,”he said.

Retail expansion is particularly critical for the brand, Shulman explained. “If you look at Jimmy Choo versus some of the competitors, we’re still underpen-etrated, particularly in Europe and Asia. We also believe there’s still growth in America. We believe there’s at least 200 additional store locations.”

He pointed out the opportunity for more doors even within Manhattan, where there are currently two stores, both uptown.

Jimmy Choo said this week it plans to increase its total store network to 118 loca-tions in 33 countries in 2011. Openings include shops in Madrid; Antwerp, Belgium, and St. Moritz, Switzerland. All three doors will offer full Jimmy Choo lifestyle mer-chandise, including shoes, handbags, small leather goods, sunglasses and fragrance. The Antwerp store will be Jimmy Choo’s first retail location in Belgium.

The company continues to widen its brand recognition with high-profile col-laborations, as well. In fall 2009, a capsule collection with H&M created a stir around the world, with Choo lovers standing in line to get their hands on the women’s and men’s shoes and accessories, as well as a sampling of women’s cloth-ing, which could well have served as a warm-up for a potential apparel launch.

“We definitely have a wish list of things we’d like to do, and [apparel] is on it,” Mellon said. “I think there is a Jimmy Choo identity for women for ready-to-wear.”

“What’s interesting with the H&M collaboration is that it proved that the brand really is bigger than the business is,” Schulman added. “It really tested the elasticity of the brand from a product and geo-graphic point of view.”

Since then, the company has added a collection of boots with Hunter and, most recently, a much-antic-ipated collaboration with Ugg Australia gave a sexy spin to the sheepskin boot with studs, grommets, and leopard and zebra prints and fringe details.

“I was in Seattle, where we were one of the re-cipients of Nordstrom’s Partners in Excellence Award,” Schulman recalled. “The other brand was Ugg Australia. You would think this would be a case of strange bedfellows, but the Ugg team was actually buying Jimmy Choos for the dinner that night, and it turned out they were big fans of the

brand. I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve got to tell Tamara.’ She always wears Uggs on the plane, so it happened really organically.”

Connie Rishwain, president of Ugg, suggested to Schulman that the two brands should collaborate. “I texted Tamara, and she texted me back ‘yes,’” Schulman said.

Most recently, the brand launched a partnership with Inter Parfums Inc., and the first namesake fragrance will launch exclusively at Jimmy Choo stores next January — featuring Mellon herself in the campaign — followed by global dis-tribution in February. The scent, inside a Murano glass bottle, is a concoction of tiger lily, patchouli, and a touch of pear and toffee.

The company also will revive its men’s shoe business with a collection launch-ing next fall.

“We’re going to start in a limited distribution and really want to focus on the key influential specialty stores that are known for men’s,” Schulman said. “We know that men shop in a different way from women, and it’s important for us to build the credibility alongside other luxury brands in multibrand environments.”

Much of the recent growth, however, has come from the “Choo 24:7” program, which was launched last spring with shoes, and focuses on some of the more classic

Continued on page 8

Continued from page 4

THIS JUST INJust this week, Jimmy Choo has made the following changes:

• Hannah Colman has been promoted to the new position of president for Europe and e-commerce. Her responsibilities cover all retail and wholesale business for the U.K. and continental Europe, as well as all franchise business in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa. Colman will also be responsible for all e-commerce. She joined Jimmy Choo in 1997 and was most recently senior vice president for European retail and e-commerce.

• Newcomer Wannie Suen was named senior vice president for Asia, a new role based in Hong Kong. Suen is charged with establishing a regional office and will report to Joshua Schulman. Suen’s luxury experience includes her most recent post as regional director of the Asia-Pacific region for FF Group. Prior to that, she worked at Salvatore Ferragamo and Prada.

The Mumbai store.

for fifteen years of dazzling design!

Congratulations to Jimmy Choo

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WWD SPECIAL REPORT

CARRYING AN EVER-GROWING ASSORT-ment of new designs and product categories, Jimmy Choo is continuing its march across the world. The company’s widespread recog-nition, due in some measure to the “Sex and the City” TV and film franchise, has become something of a symbol of chic luxury that ap-peals to a diverse global population.

The London-based company this month opened its second store in Germany on the Goethestrasse in Frankfurt. Other recent openings include flagships in Milan and Zurich, and stores in Beirut, Sydney, Macau, Bangalore and Ho Chi Minh City.

Upcoming openings include a unit in Milan’s La Rinascente department store, Choo’s first store in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and four locations in Japan.

In addition, Jimmy Choo has tapped three key European markets for May introductions in Antwerp, Belgium, and a directly oper-ated shop-in-shop in Madrid at Corte Inglés Castellana. A store at Via Maistra will bow in November in Saint Moritz. The Antwerp store marks Choo’s entrance into Belgium. The company has been in Spain since 2005 with a Madrid flagship and stores in Barcelona and Puerto Banus. Its Zurich store, unveiled this year, marked its entry into Switzerland.

Joshua Schulman, chief executive officer, summed up the company’s not-so-unhappy problem: “Our brand image remains larger than our business today in continental Europe. We will now be able to offer a more convenient and luxurious Jimmy Choo experience in each of these key luxury markets.

“China is very important and we remain underpenetrated there with only two loca-tions,” Schulman added. “This will obviously be a focus for us as we want to educate the customer there about Jimmy Choo and build our presence in the market. We are starting to gain traction in India, where we have a strong partner that has already rolled out three stores in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, with the fourth to follow in Pune in 2011.”

Jimmy Choo this week unveiled the first of four planned stores in Brazil. Meanwhile, Latin America will be a focus with a store opening in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic next year.

After the recession, Choo expects a re-bound in its Middle East business. The com-pany opened a unit in Beirut this year, relo-cated its Kuwait City store and is preparing to open its fourth location in Dubai in the Mall of the Emirates.

Asia represents one of the biggest oppor-tunities for Jimmy Choo, Schulman said. “We have a great base there with a joint venture with Bluebell Group in Hong Kong, who have been excellent partners.”

Schulman stressed that Jimmy Choo is only 15 years old so it still considers Europe and Japan to be “emerging markets” even though other brands may be fully built out there. “In Europe, we are opening stores where more

established brands have been present for 20 to 30 years and we are just getting started. We remain underpenetrated in comparison with the big luxury brands.”

Japan is slowing or declining on a macro level, Schulman said, but Jimmy Choo is find-ing that a younger client is “moving away from establishment brands so this has created a counter cyclical opportunity for Jimmy Choo — and a few other brands — to take share from other larger brands. We have a strong pipeline of new stores coming on board in Japan and we have strong like-for-like growth in our existing network there as well.”

While Jimmy Choo’s retail network is most developed in the U.S. with 26 stores, Schulman said “there are still some impor-tant growth opportunities. In some major cit-ies like San Francisco, we do not have a free-standing store at all. In other cities like New York, we already have two very successful lo-cations uptown but nothing downtown.”

The company has no deals to announce as yet, but Schulman said, “We have an important cli-entele that lives below 14th Street in New York. With all the residential development in Chelsea, the West Village, SoHo and TriBeCa as well as the considerable tourist appeal, this is high on our list of priorities.”

One of Jimmy Choo’s fastest-growing stores in the world is in the Ala Moana Center in Waikiki, Hawaii. “We know there is additional opportunity in Waikiki,” Schulman said, add-ing, “We are being disciplined about finding the right locations but we know that there is additional opportunity in America. We also are not present yet in Canada or Mexico.

“The other growth story in U.S. is coming from renovating existing locations,” Schulman said. “We have recently done full renovations in Dallas, South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif., and Short Hills, N.J. When these stores origi-nally opened in 2002 and 2003, Jimmy Choo was a small shoe brand with two collections per year, so [the stores] were conceived as intimate shoe boutiques. We have done gut renovations and built our most updated concepts which now allow the full range of product, including six seasonal shoe collections, Choo 24:7 shoes, handbags, small leather goods, soft accessories, and fragrance. These renovated stores are run-ning at least 60 percent ahead of last year in similar square footage and at the same time de-livering a more luxurious customer experience so we see renovations as an important growth opportunity too.”

Scheduled for renovation in February is the original Jimmy Choo store in the Olympic Tower on 51st Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. “We are going to elevate the pre-sentation and make this store a true jewel box and reflective of the brand,” he said. “Tamara [Mellon] opened this store in 1998 as the brand’s first location in New York City and it remains a destination for very loyal locals and tourists alike.”

— Sharon Edelson

styles that shoppers look at as investment pieces. The campaign expanded with boots for fall and, for next spring, will launch into handbags.

“For us, 24:7 really reinvented the core of our business in terms of Tamara’s idea of presenting the perfect shoe closet,” Schulman said, citing an excellent response to the program. “Our strategy is built on having both the [signatures] of the brand and pushing forward with innovation. It adds a whole other element. So many of these products may have existed in the store before, but not pulled together in a way with such product authority.”

According to Schulman, 24:7 now accounts for 30 percent of the total business and is growing rapidly.

Of its current volume, 60 percent is derived from retail sales, Schulman said, so as a result, Jimmy Choo remains a pe-rennial favorite of retailers.

Ron Frasch, president and chief merchandising officer for Saks Inc., noted how Jimmy Choo has benefited from its “adventurous” spirit, citing the launch of 24:7 as well as its recent collaborations.

“They have looked at the roots of the brand and how they could develop that,” Frasch said. “Both Tamara and Joshua are great merchants and understand their customer, how she has grown and her needs besides the core footwear that falls within the brand DNA. They understand the marketing of their brand and how to make it unique, and they have expanded their retail pretty significantly.

“It’s always been distinctive, it always has a point of view,” he added. “Jimmy Choo doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about its competitors, but instead focuses on its own brand and how it can service its clients.”

Net-a-porter founder and executive chairman Natalie Massenet cited Mellon’s sharp brand vision.

“Tamara is tremendously focused and tenacious, strong-willed but soft-spoken,” Massenet said. “That combination has allowed her to move forward. From day one, she had this global vision for the brand, and spent the last 15 years delivering on it, and she is not done. Jimmy Choo is so clearly defined as a brand, and she hasn’t deviated from it nor tried to be all things to all people.

“You can always tell a Jimmy Choo shoe,” Massenet added. “Tamara has developed a distinct language, whether it’s a heel or the straps, or the slightly rock ’n’ roll attitude mixed with the ladylike.”

Pete Nordstrom, president of merchandising at Nordstrom Inc., said customers appreciate the quality and style of the de-signs — as well as their celebrity appeal.

“They have been able to accomplish this through the recogni-tion in the world of Hollywood and celebrity and that has helped

elevate the brand, and give it credibility with our customers,” Nordstrom said,

adding that Mellon herself embodies the brand values. “She is a modern woman, chic and stylish, and has created this brand image that is appealing to her. That seems very sincere and authentic, and ap-peals to a lot of customers.”

In its 15th year, the company is focusing on its brand growth in the online sphere as well, with a

recent Web site relaunch.“It’s one of our fastest grow-

ing businesses, it’s our second-largest store today, and we’re building it to be the largest in each market in which we op-erate,” said Schulman.

“The relaunch really looked at two elements: one was bringing it up to date in

terms of the creative, so it had a look and feel that was anal-

ogous to all of the creative imagery that we’re doing.” The brand also tinkered with additional functionality.

Jimmy Choo will relaunch its Web site again in 2011, intro-ducing social media where users will be able to communicate with each other.

The company’s anniversary is being celebrated at retail with the introduction of the Crystal Collection, a mix of revamped Jimmy Choo originals.

“Crystal is such a part of the DNA of Jimmy Choo,” Mellon said. “We used crystal really before anyone else was using it on shoes, and we did it on straps that wound around the ankles.”

Mellon commissioned her favorite contemporary artist, Marilyn Minter, to photograph the collection for an upcoming ad campaign. In her trademark devil-may-care bravado, Minter portrayed the hand-crafted heels doused in a glistening sheen of mud. (For more on the brand’s advertising and marketing, see page 12.)

The crystal collection will officially kick off next year along with the Jimmy Choo cruise collection, and will include 40 pieces, primarily shoes, but with a few handbags incorporated as well.

Mellon originally came up with the idea to focus on crystal with no notion that it’s the traditional gift for a couple’s 15th wedding anniversary.

Both Schulman and Mellon laughed at the serendipity, and Schulman joked, “We’re just happy that it wasn’t wood.”

Continued from page 6

Retail Details

The Tulita hobo style.

The store in Beijing.

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When it comes to just the right blend of sexy, funky and sophisticated, no one can deny that the world of Jimmy Choo has plenty to choose from. From strappy sandals to oversize hobos and a cult following among celebrities, their impact is clear.

— Roxanne Robinson-Escriout

WiselyChoos

Glint, fall 2009.

Ciara, cruise 2011, part of the 15th anniversary crystal collection.

Monna L, cruise 2009.

Marion Cotillard

Blake Lively

Feline, fall 2010.

Asha, spring 2005.

Hep, cruise 2006.

Glenys, fall 2008.

Jennifer Lopez

Jessica Biel

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Madonna

Reese Witherspoon

Corsica, spring 2009.

PEP Tote for Project PEP (Elton John’s AIDS Foundation), cruise 2009.

Macy, fall 2005.

Claudia, spring 2009.

Jennifer Aniston

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WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 201012

TAMARA MELLON WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER THE ALL-NIGHTER SHE pulled in London, to-ing and fro-ing on the phone with the celebrity stylists of Los Angeles who were desperately seeking Jimmy Choos. It was shortly before the Oscars in 1998, and the stylists were scouring the city for the stilettos and strappy sandals from a small but rapidly evolving cult brand.

“They were buying the shoes at Saks and Neiman’s,” recalled Mellon. “I thought, I have to go out there myself. There’s an opening for us here. Why don’t we dye the shoes to match the dress on the spot?”

The following year, Mellon boarded a plane for Los Angeles, accompanied by hundreds of white satin shoes in 25 styles, and one staffer specialized in dyeing them. She invited the stylists to pick their favorites — free of charge — while Mellon and her colleague got down to the business of customizing the footwear in their hotel suite.

Mellon remembered one Oscar year when she had to re-dye a pair of heels for Julianne Moore, after the actress decided to change her dress at the last minute. When the star stepped out of her limo in black Chanel couture, her black stilettos were still wet.

“We’d run around like crazy looking for shoes,” the celebrity fashion stylist Jessica Paster told W Magazine in 2006. She applauded Mellon for coming to Los Angeles, “offering us everything under one roof.”

Paster remembered the drama of dressing Hilary Swank for her first Oscar nomination. “We’d only found the dress [an olive ballgown by Randolph Duke] the day before, and Tamara came to the rescue. We stayed up until 3 or 4 a.m. playing around with colors, trying to find the right shade.”

Soon, nominees, presenters and plain-old guests — including Cate Blanchett, Halle Berry, Renée Zellweger, Salma Hayek, Cameron Diaz and Calista Flockhart — were wearing customized Choo shoes to the Academy Awards and other cer-emonies. “It was a big breakthrough for us,” said Mellon of her decision to set up the temporary shop in Los Angeles each year. “And it’s still paying off today.”

Those early years for Jimmy Choo were all about making do with very limited resources — and a scrappy spirit. At the time, Choo was still a tiny and privately funded company operated by Mellon, founder Jimmy Choo himself and his niece, Sandra Choi. Creativity and ambition were the team’s most abundant assets.

“We always tried to think outside the box,” said Mellon, recalling that the ad budgets in those early years were miniscule, “something like 0.1 percent of sales.”

And, while Jimmy Choo would eventually engage celebrities and famous pho-tographers for its marketing and ad campaigns, it has never relied on marquee names to sell the brand.

According to Mellon, the Jimmy Choo message has been — and always will be — about inspiring a broad range of women, whether through images created by artists such as Richard Phillips or Marilyn Minter, ones featuring established models like Amber Valletta and Angela Lindvall or others featuring the plus-size model Crystal Renn, who appears in the spring 2011 campaign shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. Some observers say the Everywoman strategy has put Choo in good stead: While footwear competitors such as Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin, Sergio Rossi, René Caovilla and Giuseppe Zanotti have cul-tivated a niche, insider appeal, Choo has gone in the opposite direction, devel-oping a broader range of products and collaborating with mass brands such as H&M, Ugg and Hunter. “For us, the message is never about income or age, but about attitude,” said Mellon.

Although Choo is now backed by TowerBrook Capital Partners LP, with 115 stores and revenues of about 150 million pounds, or about $230 million at cur-rent exchange, Mellon — who has made millions over the past 10 years and re-mains a substantial shareholder in Jimmy Choo — still makes her annual trek to Hollywood for the Oscar shoe-a-thon.

Today, besides dyeing the shoes, Mellon and her team will attach fresh flow-ers, hand-paint or embellish the shoes with beads or Swarovski Elements. Mellon also models in the brand’s new fragrance campaign, shot by van Lamsweerde and Matadin, and works alongside creative agency AR New York to create a visual language for the brand.

Yet the Jimmy Choo language has not changed radically over the years.“The customer has to dream and think, Maybe I could be her,” said Mellon,

adding that her inspirations for the ad campaigns come from various decades and strong, creative women such as Deborah Harry and Jane Birkin. “The ads have always been about showing an empowered, fashion-forward woman who’s the right side of sexy.”

The first ad campaign, for fall 2000, was photographed by Raymond Meier and featured a leg model wearing a pair of beige knee-high stiletto boots — which would become a Jimmy Choo classic — against a cityscape at night.

Two years later, Mellon and her new private equity partners Equinox Luxury

WWD SPECIAL REPORT

Continued on page 14

Campaign Pledge The image of the brand remains consistent through its marketing and advertising. By Samantha Conti

Nicole Richie in spring 2009, by Brett Ratner.

Fall 2004, by Mario Testino.

Amber Valletta in fall 2010,

by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh

Matadin.

Spring 2009, by Terry Richardson.

Congratulations to Tamara, Josh and the entire Jimmy Choo team on the 15th Anniversary.

We are proud to be your partners.

www.towerbrook.com

SECTION II WWD.COM

14 WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2010

WWD SPECIAL REPORT

Holdings tapped Helmut Newton to shoot the campaign on location in Monaco. The colorful image of a barefoot woman sitting poolside with her heels on display nearby, was a clear signal the little London brand was ready to position itself alongside the big luxury fashion players of the day.

Ilaria Alber-Glanstaetten, chief executive officer of Provenance, a London-based luxury brand consultancy, said one of the things that sets Jimmy Choo apart from competitors has been its choice to play in the fashion, rather than the footwear, arena.

“Looking at the ads, you see they’re a sexy and extremely fashion brand. Over the years, they’ve pushed themselves further as a fashion brand compared with, say, Sergio Rossi and Manolo Blahnik, which position themselves as shoe brands,” she said. “[Choo’s]branding is very consistent, and they oc-cupy a very distinct position in the market — at the inter-section of shoes and fashion.”

While the Newton shoot was something of a budget stretcher — “It was just one shot, and our resources were limited, so we had to place it very strategically,” recalled Mellon — it sent a definite message to the market about the brand’s aspirations.

Two years later, Mario Testino turned his lens on Jimmy Choo for three seasons’ worth of ads, featur-ing a new product category — handbags. Hiring Testino also proved to be a very expensive business, so in 2006, Mellon decided to work with Brett Ratner, the producer and director of films including “X-Men: The Last Stand,” who had recently begun a career in photography. With Mellon’s creative input, Ratner would go on to shoot three campaigns, with celebrities such as Nicole Richie, Molly Sims and Quincy Jones. “We got a great response to those ads,” said Mellon, adding that working with Ratner was another example of “thinking outside the box.”

After TowerBrook came on board as Choo’s new owner, the company hired AR New York to be its creative agency in 2008 and began working with Terry Richardson to shoot campaigns with Lindvall.

In those years, Choo began acting even more like a fashion house, launching mid-season and capsule collections such as 24:7 — Choo’s collection of classic and best-selling styles — and creating stand-alone ad campaigns to go with them.

Richardson also shot the campaign for Choo’s collection with H&M at the Rooftop of The Standard in Manhattan. Mellon views that deal as something of a seminal moment for Jimmy Choo.

“It was one of our most successful collaborations, and it tested the elasticity of the brand,” she said. “We did men’s shoes, women’s clothing and jewelry — and

there was no resistance on the part of customers. It shows that Jimmy Choo has a creative identity, and there’s a demand out there for the products.”

For its latest campaigns, Choo has opted to work with van Lamsweerde and Matadin. The duo shot Valletta wearing Choo for fall and, for spring, they shot Renn.

“It’s a Seventies, gaucho-girl story, but done in a very modern way with a lot of color,” said Mellon. “I think over the years, the Choo woman has definitely grown up and the ads themselves have become slicker and more professional.”

For cruise 2011, Mellon has taken an artsy tack, tapping painter-photographer Marilyn Minter, who is known for her erotic images.

“I collect her work and she has shot Jimmy Choo shoes for her artwork,” ex-plained Mellon. “She gets modern glamour, and I think when anyone looks at the

images, they’ll get this decision to work with her immedi-ately. I think it’s exciting for the customer to see us mix-ing things up and using artists to interpret the shoes.”

Rita Clifton, the U.K. chairman of branding consul-tancy Interbrand, says there’s always been a “brainy ele-ment” to the Jimmy Choo ads and image over the years.

“The brand has never been associated with mindless bling,” said Clifton. “There’s always been an intelligence and wit to the brand — with an element of fetish — and it has always been associated with powerful and charis-matic women. Think of the ‘Sex and the City’ actresses, or Cate Blanchett. And it comes from Tamara, who’s stylish and intelligent herself.”

Before working with Minter, in 2007, Mellon worked with Phillips to create two limited edition bags: a clutch and a tote inspired by Phillips’ paintings of Sixties and Seventies beauty ads, which she unveiled at Art Basel Miami. And, while that collaboration was a success — “People are still asking me about those bags,” she said — Mellon pointed out that artist collaborations should remain rare and special.

“It’s not something you can force. You have to find the right fit,” she said. “It has to be a project that speaks to

you in a certain moment.”Mellon has said the goal is to transform Jimmy Choo into a business valued at

$2 billion, and there are myriad expansion plans on the table. The brand, which is undergoing a strategic review with an eye to a possible stock market listing or sale, has recently launched its first fragrance and will unveil men’s footwear for fall 2011.

Mellon said clothing, jewelry and home goods are all potentially in the pipeline.“Our goal is to turn Jimmy Choo into a lifestyle brand,” said Mellon, who in-

sists the imagery of the brand won’t change. “Whether we’re selling home or ready-to-wear, we want to show how the Jimmy Choo woman lives.”

Fall 2000, by Raymond Meier.

Continued from page 12

We are delighted to be able to congratulate

Tamara Mellon and Joshua Shulman and all the staff at Jimmy Choo,

on the occasion of their 15th anniversary of successful business.

In this time we have been proud to have played a part

in setting up shops and boutiques

all around the world.

INTERIORS, AUTOMATIC DOORS, FRAMES, CURTAIN WALLS, CONTRACT

www.essequattro.it

AnniversaryTh

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