Jimmy Choo: Fashion and Business Collide
Published 18 October, 2021
Image Source: Unsplash
Jimmy Choo first made his first shoes at the young age of 11, a pair of leather slippers that he made for his mother’s birthday. Legend has it that it took him around 8 hours to design and make the pair. His father, a shoemaker by trade who made all of Choo’s shoes by hand, was the one who taught him the craft, and was also the one who ignited his passion for shoemaking and taught him most of what he knew about it.
Born into a Hakka family of craftsmen who specialised in shoemaking, it was only a matter of time before he fell in love with the intricate act of designing and crafting the perfect shoe suited for its client. Raised in George Town, the capital city of Penang known for its British colonial buildings and Chinese shophouses, in an era without television, the Internet and other modern technologies that we have grown so familiar with, Choo found solace and excitement in watching his father make beautiful, handmade shoes in his workshop at home.
“That’s the way I spent my spare time as a child because we had no iPhones, no computers, no televisions, not even calculators.” he said in an interview with South China Morning Post in 2018. “It was quite primitive, so in order to kill time, that was my entertainment.”
Now, the Choo family name has become an internationally acclaimed fashion brand that makes luxury fashion pieces for the rest of the world, a major player in many of Europe’s fashion capitals with a wide host of elite and world famous clientele.
London, then to the rest of the world
In 1982, at the age of 21, Choo enrolled at the Cordwainers Technical College (now part of the prestigious London College of Fashion) in Hackney in London, England. Driven by his passion for shoemaking and wanting to make a name for himself in the city, he chose to pursue an overseas education and left his hometown of 21 years behind for a chance to strike gold.
And strike gold he did. After working at 2 design companies for a total of nine years, Choo opened his own business. Encouraged and guided by his parents who came over to Britain and stayed for 2 years with him, his very first investor being his own mother, Choo ran the entire operation with them. That is, they spent every day making women’s shoes, packaging them, promoting them, and selling them.
His big break came in 1988 when he did a show at London Fashion Week, when Vogue magazine saw his designs and featured his work in an eight-page spread. The rest is history as he burst into the fashion scene and exploded in popularity, with big clients to his name such as Princess Diana, other members of the British royal family and members of British high society. In 1996, Choo finally founded the eponymous company he now owns and guides, Jimmy Choo.
In April 2001, Choo sold his 50% stake in the company for £10 million, and he has since concentrated his work on the exclusive Jimmy Choo couture line produced under license from Jimmy Choo Ltd.
Beyond Fashion
A pioneer in the art of celebrity dressing, it is no wonder that Jimmy Choo found widespread success in the luxury fashion circles of celebrities and high culture around the world. The brand’s reputation as a celebrity favourite helped to fuel its rapid expansion.
Its iconography was further defined by the bold and dramatic advertising portraying glamorous but strong women in towering heels and luxurious handbags, captured by some of the most acclaimed fashion photographers in the world. However, Choo has not just stopped there and driven by his strong desire to uphold corporate social responsibility, he set up the Jimmy Choo Foundation in 2011 with the focus of “empowering women and improving their quality of life through education and enterprise.”
The Jimmy Choo Foundation works with global organisations CARE International and Women for Women International to give women in developing countries the economic, social and moral support they need to contribute to and be included in the global economy.
"Women have always been at the core of the Jimmy Choo brand, and as a company, we feel passionately about creating a world where education and enterprise for women can develop the confidence and optimism to dream and achieve,” Sandra Choi, the brand’s co-founder asserts. And so far, they have done just that, with The Jimmy Choo Foundation actively pursuing and supporting local and international charities in London and around the world.
Today, the Jimmy Choo brand has expanded its repertoire of fashion accessories and now focuses not just on shoes and boots, but is proud to call itself an all-encompassing, complete and global luxury fashion brand, with stores and offices in many fashion capitals around the world, such as New York, London, Tokyo and Paris. Armed with a grand creative vision and a passion for making a difference in the fashion world, the Jimmy Choo brand has grown into something bigger, a brand that stands for something more, with an insatiable desire to continually innovate and come up with bolder designs that push the limits of the fashion world itself.