Dato Jimmy Choo Lost His Brand Name

Yes, Dato’ Jimmy Choo lost his brand name that he built with his co-partner Tamara Mellon.

In 2011, many Malaysians were all excited when they heard the news that their iconic shoemaker Dato’ Jimmy Choo wanted to buy back the world-renowned brand JIMMY CHOO which he co-founded in 1996.

Jimmy Choo Lost Brand Name

Mr Choo Yeang Keat hired London-listed broking firm Daniel Stewart to help him on a potential £500mil (RM2.4bil) bid to buy back the company.

He even sought legal advice from Matrix, the law firm owned by Cherie Blair, wife of former British prime minister Tony Blair.

Ironically, in the May 2009 issue of Reader’s Digest, Dato’ Jimmy Choo said he has NO REGRETS selling his stake in Jimmy Choo.

He added that the company still bears his name and nobody can take away ‘Jimmy Choo’ from him.

Then why he was so desperate to get back the luxury shoe brand which bears his name?

Jimmy Choo Lost Brand Name

Alas, it is sad to say, Dato Jimmy Choo did not get back the eponymous brand.

The brand Jimmy Choo was bought over by Vienna-based Labelux with a hefty tag of £500m, the luxury goods group backed by Germany’s billionaire Reimann family.

In other words, Dato Jimmy Choo did not get back Jimmy Choo, the brand.

The sexy co-founder of Jimmy Choo Ltd, Tamara Mellon will remain with the company as chief creative officer and take a stake in the subsidiary being created to own Jimmy Choo.

As reported in The Guardian, the sale of Jimmy Choo will deliver a multi-million pound pay day for Mellon who owns a 17 per cent stake recently valued at £85m.

Back in November 2001, Dato Jimmy Choo sold his 50% stake in his eponymous company for £10 million to Equinox Luxury Holdings Ltd.

Jimmy Choo Story

Jimmy Choo Yeang Keat started off as an apprentice for his father.

In the early 1980s, Mr. Choo went to England to study at the Cordwainers Technical College in Hackney.

He graduated with honors in 1983.

This Malaysian-born shoemaker opened his first shop in Hackney in 1986.

It was Tamara Mellon, the accessories editor from British Vogue who discovered Jimmy Choo’s fine craftmanship.

And because of the exposure of Jimmy’s shoes featuring in the British Vogue, the rest is history. so to speak.

You could say it was the late Princess Diana who started it all.

Even though, his shoes were getting popular, Mr. Choo was still a small operation.

Then Tamara Yeardye Mellon approached the Malaysian Chinese shoemaker to partner and to create a line of ready-to-wear footwear.

They worked with Italian factories and opened their first boutique shop in London.

By the late 1990s, they opened stores in Los Angeles and New York and attracted Hollywood celebrities, that included Julia Roberts and Renee Zellweger.

While the global brand was expanding, Mr. Choo and Mellon were at odds about the direction of the company.

Tamara Mellon even called Jimmy not a shoe designer, but merely a cobbler.

In 2001, Choo sold his half of the company to Robert Bensoussan of Equinox Luxury Holdings for $30 million.

Then suddenly both Mellon together with the label’s chief executive Joshua Schulman left Jimmy Choo brand.

Tamara Mellon went on to start her own line of sexy range of eponymous footwear brand.

Then in 2017, Michael Kors Holdings Limited bought Jimmy Choo PLC at approximately $1.35 billion.

Today, Choo has a small shop in London, where he does best, making exclusive orders, under the label Jimmy Choo Couture.

“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.” – Henry David Thoreau

(Walden And Other Writings By Henry David Thoreau, Random House Publishing Group, 2004, The Village, P. 243) source

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