ArtistMalaysian-British
Jimmy Choo
2 active items
Jimmy Choo was born on 15 November 1948 in Penang, Malaysia, into a family of shoemakers. His father cobbled shoes for a living, and by age eleven Choo had already made his first pair himself -- leather slippers for his mother. That early immersion in the craft set the direction for everything that followed. He left Malaysia for London in the early 1980s to study at Cordwainers Technical College, now part of the London College of Fashion, graduating with a command of construction and pattern-making that would underpin his later work.
Choo opened his first workshop in 1986, renting space inside a former hospital building on Kingsland Road in east London. The shoes he made there were handmade, bespoke, and quietly reaching the right people. A feature in British Vogue in 1988 -- eight pages -- brought him to the attention of the wider fashion world, and through the early 1990s Princess Diana became a notable client, wearing his shoes for public engagements. The association with Diana brought a level of visibility that no advertisement could have bought.
The business changed shape in 1996 when Choo co-founded Jimmy Choo Ltd. with Tamara Mellon, then an accessories editor at British Vogue. Mellon's commercial instincts and Choo's craft reputation combined to build a ready-to-wear line that could scale. Choo sold his 50% stake in 2001 for £10 million. The brand continued expanding without him at the helm -- Lion Capital acquired a majority stake in 2004 valuing the company at £101 million, Labelux bought it in 2011 for around £500 million, and Capri Holdings acquired it in 2017. Choo himself received an OBE in 2002 for his services to the fashion industry.
In the years after departing the company that bears his name, Choo returned to teaching and mentoring. In 2021 he founded the JCA London Fashion Academy, an institution focused on supporting emerging designers -- a full-circle return to the educational environment that had shaped him four decades earlier. His personal brand of handmade couture shoes continued from his London studio, distinct from the global ready-to-wear operation.
At auction, Jimmy Choo items appear across Nordic houses as pre-owned luxury fashion -- boots, stilettos, and bags. The 28 items catalogued on Auctionist span platforms from Bruun Rasmussen in Lyngby and Stockholms Auktionsverk to Kaplans Auktioner. The top recorded sale is a pair of black leather boots at 7,110 SEK, with stilettos and a leopard-print fur bag also among the stronger results. The pieces trade as secondary-market luxury goods rather than collectibles, reflecting the brand's position as a wearable fashion label.