Good book that relates the story of the 'lady' that created the 'jimmy choo' shoes. Always knew that it had to be a woman - who else would know how comfortable to make the shoe ! ( )

Jimmy Choo, the shoemaker, hasn't had anything to do with Jimmy Choo, the shoes, for quite a while now. That's what this book is about - the way a small, artisanal shoemaking company catering to a select group of wealthy women was turned into an international luxury ready-to-wear brand featured on television and the red carpet.


One of Mr. Choo's customers was a young woman named Tamara Yeardye, a socialite with business in her blood. She saw the potential of the business, and used her social and business connections to raise the funds to capitalize on it. Convincing Mr. Choo, though, was even harder, but she did. The saga of Jimmy Choo (the company) is a microcosm of the world of start-ups, IPOs, leveraged buyouts, private equity firms, all the pieces that made up the financial picture of the late '90s and early 2000s. And it's also the story of some very powerful personalities, and how their personal lives and scandals affected the company.


Honestly, I wasn't sure I was going to like this book. The blurbs, and certainly the first chapter, read like a gossip magazine. But slowly and inexorably I was drawn in by the vivid way the authors describe the financial machinations, the growth of the company through multiple sales, the dealmaking. It's easy to be misled by the initial portrait of Tamara Yeardye Mellon posing in "cleavage and stiletto shoes" by her nude photograph. Despite her social butterfly image, and the very real scandals she was involved in, she is one smart, driven and ambitious cookie.


The authors are, respectively, a journalist specializing in fashion and luxury goods, and an equity analyst and founding partner of a private equity firm. It's not difficult to tell who wrote what, and the way in which the book bounces back and forth between Yeardye's personal pecadilloes and high finance is a bit distracting. Kudos, however, to Ms. Maceira de Rosen for explicating complicated financial dealings in a way that makes them clear and understandable to the lay person.


The story of Jimmy Choo is, to me, a sad one. True, he is now a wealthy man as the world measures wealth. But he and his niece (who had worked with him in his shop but now works with Yeardye Mellon) do not speak. And the man who, with his art and careful craft, made the beautiful shoes that first attracted Yeardye's attention now cannot use his own name without someone else's consent.

This book was an interesting read about business and (more importantly) shoes. I am not a business person, but this book was obviously written to appeal to lay-readers like me so the business elements were well-explained and, I suspect, fairly rudimentary. I picked up the book because it was about Jimmy Choo shoes, and it did deliver an interesting look at the early development of the brand. Unfortunately, the writing got repetitive and rather gossipy; I was much less interested in the details of Tamara's divorce that in the details of Jimmy's ouster from the company, but the book is much more about Tamara and her life than about Jimmy Choo and his. All in all, an enjoyable read despite the lack of substance. ( )

The Towering World of Jimmy Choo is the behind the scenes story of the world famous shoe brand. Jimmy Choo was a young shoemaker who crafted made-to-order shoes for a few select wealthy clients in London when he caught the eye of Tamara Yeardye. Tamara began using Jimmy's shoes in Vogue layouts and later convinced her wealthy father to join with Choo to invest in a mass produced luxury shoe line.

Tension between Tamara and Jimmy quickly came to a head when it became clear that they both had different visions for the company. Soon Choo was only involved in the couture line of custom shoes while the mass produced designs were all created by Tamara and Choo's niece Sandra Choi.

Now twelve years later Choo is no longer a part of the company bearing his name and the shoe that made its start in a small cramped space is one of the most successful luxury brands in the world, worth over $350 million.

I have to admit that when I first noticed this book I thought it was chic-lit fiction not the real story behind the legendary brand but I am so glad I picked it up. It was a fascinating look behind the scenes.

I'm not at all knowledgeable about the world of fashion but enjoyed reading this story because of the peek into that lifestyle. Not only does the book cover the company, it covers the financial decision making and the changes the company has gone through in just a few short years. It's amazing to me that all this could be built from the Jimmy Choo name while having almost nothing to do with the real Jimmy Choo. I recommend this book for not only fashion lovers but to anyone who enjoys a good non-fiction read. ( )

Lauren Goldstein Crowe and Sagra Maceira de Rosen show the progress of Jimmy Choo leaving his Penang, Malaysia roots where his father was a shoemaker to end up designing shoes from his own luxury collection. After attending Cordwainers, he sold shoes at a stall after making them from a Kingsland Road, Hackney, Metropolitan Hospital ("Metropolitan") space-where artisans and businesses found a cheap, though perhaps unsavory location to create their wares. The real focus of the story, however, is on the unflappable Tamara (nee Yeardye) Mellon who convinced both Jimmy Choo and her father and his friends to invest in a Jimmy Choo-branded luxury shoe line.

Tamara had seen Jimmy's potential for earning with a line of shoes after his sucess selling one-off pairs both in her role as an assistant to London Vogue Fashion Director, Sarajane Hoare and through her socialite friends she was partying with in London at the time. Her father used his Vidal Sasson connections from his years past to help get Tamara, J.C and Co., set up around the world, but particularly in America. As told, the success of the "perfect shoe" company was built from a recipe of Tamara's contacts, determination, her father's tough-as-nails business sense-which he clearly taught to Tamara, along with the mix of some luck and name recognition with celebrity (not the least of which was Princess Diana early-on with Jimmy Choo and then much later thanks to Sex and the City!)

Goldstein Crowe and Maceira de Rosen's book reads like a very long mix between a fashion and business magazine article to tell how Tamara (together with Choo's niece-Sandra Choi, Robert Bensoussan and others) helped to build the Jimmy Choo empire from the ground up. They extoll how Tamara triumphed through personal loss when she got divorced, through sale and resale of the company up until now. Today she serves in the company's current incantation as the company's President, shareholder and board member.

A mini-series on the Chanel Haute Couture line in Spring of 2005 called Signe Chanel portrayed how the Chanel staff posted a sign that showed whenever Karl Lagerfeld was in the office... it would say K.L n'est pas la or would flip for K.L est la! I would say the most tragic thing about reading this book for me is that J.C n'est pas la. I read the book hoping to find out how a kid brought up the hard way ended up having this great shoe empire, with the help of some visionary businesspeople. However, what I ended up reading about is what appears to be a crush by the authors for Tamara Mellon. At the end of the day, for me, it was Jimmy Choo who was missing from this tale. According to the authors, though he returned to run his own couture shoe business...he was considering shutting down because he was having trouble purchasing the quality shoe-components he needed to stay open. ( )