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Women Designers You Should Know
038. Tamara Mellon: The Woman Behind Jimmy Choo (w/ Rachelle Bergstein)
00:38:02
This episode we talk about the high-heeled rise, fall, and fierce reinvention of designer Tamara Mellon, co-founder of Jimmy Choo, whose resilience redefined what it means to be a woman in luxury fashion—with cultural insight from author Rachelle Bergstein.
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- [00:03]
Amber Asey
Hello, and welcome to Women Designers yous Should Know, the podcast where we remind everyone that design wasn't always just a boys club. I'm your host, Amber Asey, and today we are talking about Tamara Mellon. Some women walk through life barefoot, some in sneakers. But for many, shoes are more than just a necessity. They're symbols of power, identity, and independence. No one knows this better than Tamara Mellon, the woman behind one of the biggest luxury shoe brands in the world, Jimmy Choo. But if you think her story is all glitz and glamour, think again. This is a story of resilience, reinvention, and fighting for control in an industry that too often shuts women out. And today, I'm joined by Richele Bergstein, author of Women from the Ankle Down, a book that explores the cultural history of shoes and their impact on women's lives. We'll talk about how shoes have shaped fashion, feminism, and even power dynamics. And then we'll turn to Tamara Mellon, her highs, her lows, and how she's been pulled down again and again by businessmen, private equity sharks, her own mother, and the press, only to rise back up stronger each time.
- [01:21]
Michelle
So let's get into it inside.
- [01:27]
Richele Bergstein
Their legacy. These women pave the way for you and me and her and she. Breaking boundaries, building better world. You should know, women designers. You should know. I should know.
- [02:11]
Michelle
Welcome, Michelle, to the podcast. Hi.
- [02:15]
Tamara Mellon
Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
- [02:19]
Michelle
I am so excited to chat all things Tamara Mellon and fully dive into her story with so many ups and downs. But before we do that, I would love to chat with you about your career, your books, specifically. One thing that really stood out to me was your book, Women from the Ankle Down. This book specifically explores how shoes have shaped history and culture. And I would love to know, what do you think it is about shoes that hold such a deep emotional connection for women?
- [02:53]
Tamara Mellon
Shoes have so many interesting, different things going for them, right? They're like little works of art that you can wear on your feet. In a world where a lot of women have certain complaints about their bodies, where, you know, your size changes through your life, feet are something that women tend not to have the same sort of angst about, right? So putting on shoes can be more. It can be less complicated than trying on a dress, for instance. So when we pick a pair of shoes, it's not just about what matches or what you think goes best with the rest of your outfit. It's like, what kind of message do you want to send? Do you want to be conservative? Do you want to be funky? You know, there are so many things that you can just in part by picking out a certain pair of shoes.
- [03:37]
Michelle
That is so true. What led you to write this book in the first place?
- [03:41]
Tamara Mellon
When I started writing this book, I published this book in 2012. But when I started researching it, commodity histories were kind of big in the publishing world. If you think of books like Salt and Cod, I thought it would be really fun to write a nonfiction style book like that that was geared more towards women. And what was interesting to me is that shoes were so frequently being dismissed as frivolous as, like a silly girl. I wanted to make the case that they are not that they actually have an incredibly rich history in this country.
- [04:12]
Michelle
Yeah. In fact, that's like kind of ahead of its time to write a book like that especially focused on women in 2012. I mean, it kind of feels like there's been much more resurgence on women even in just like the last five or seven years.
- [04:29]
Tamara Mellon
Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I felt like it was ahead of its time, but I felt like the time was right. A lot of people were paying a lot of money for shoes, and they were paying a lot of money for shoes in some cases when they couldn't really afford it. It was the height of the Christian Louboutin frenzy, and a young aspiring fashion designer told me she could barely pay her rent. But what she was saving up for was a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes because she wanted people to see that red sole and take her seriously as a designer. Now that sounds a little bit like passe, Right? But at that moment, it felt so important, like every celebrity was stepping out in their Louboutins and seeing that flash of red soul. Someone, as I would say, like, non fluent in fashion as, like my dad, would know what a Christian Louboutin red sole meant.
- [05:14]
Michelle
Yeah, it's such a male dominant industry and there are so many male designers for women's shoes, which is kind of ironic. And so I. I want to know more about that. Like, what have you seen in your research and like, what are your opinions or thoughts on like, these women? And maybe more have come out over time. But what does that imbalance look like to you?
- [05:39]
Tamara Mellon
I think when we consider, like the highest end of artists and designers, we still have a bias towards thinking of them as men. I do think that's changing somewhat in the 21st century. But when you think of great chefs, great architects, great fashion designers, a lot of them are men. And I think one of the reasons that men have been so big in women's hue design is not just because the opportunities are there, but because men don't have to wear women's shoes. You know, it sort of takes the element of wearability out of it when you're a man. I mean, not to say that they don't get feedback from their customers, but we do understand that women will wear certain shoes even if they hurt their feet. Right. You can have comfort. This is the traditional binary. You can have comfort or you can have style, but you can't have both.
- [06:30]
Michelle
So you have another book out recently, too. Do you want to tell us more about this new book of yours?
- [06:36]
Tamara Mellon
Sure. I published a book this past July, and it's called the Genius of Judy How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us. So I had written my first two books on shoes and diamonds, which kind of were like a pair. And then I diverged a little bit. Although to me, telling the story of Judy Blume, this was another thing. Women tend to love Judy Blume's books. Women who grew up in the 20th century, who grew up reading her books in the 70s and 80s and 90s, tend to feel almost like reverential towards Judy Blume. And she's someone who was not taken totally seriously as a writer for a very long time. Her books were dismissed as junk food, as like, candy for kids. And so it had a similar kind of thread to me, which was, can we locate why these books are so important to women and find out what's really meaty and important about that? So to me, Judy Blume was writing so much about feminist history and bodily autonomy and sexual pleasure and all of these things that were really not typical at the time. And she really was a pioneer. So I loved working on that book. It was so much fun.
- [07:45]
Michelle
Oh, my gosh, I love that. And I can't wait to read it because that, honestly, like, that does sound like such a great overview of her life and, like, cultural context of Judy Blume, too. Switching to Tamara Mellon, let's dive into her life and everything that she's done because she really built an empire. I think that's something that we should definitely acknowledge. And I can't believe I didn't fully know her story until researching for this episode, because I definitely thought Jimmy Choo, the entire brand was all around this man named Jimmy Choo. And it is, but it's not. It is definitely, I would say, more about Tamara Mellon than it is about Jimmy Choo. And I even Read her memoir going into this episode too, and there's, like, so much that she goes through and a lot of it sucks, but at the same time, like, look what she's accomplished, too. And so I'm just like, I'm in awe of what she's accomplished. Accomplished with everything that she's dealt with as just, like, a single person.
- [08:54]
Tamara Mellon
I totally agree. For those who don't know, she was the daughter of the founder of Vidal Sassoon. So not Vidal, but Tom Yerdi and a model. She could have just been a kind of like, socialite English debutante party girl, which she was. But then she really turned it around and she created something that has, like, incredibly lasting impact.
- [09:18]
Michelle
There's something to say about her ambition, and it's just, like, above average, I would say.
- [09:24]
Tamara Mellon
100%. Yeah. She sort of defies this idea that women have to be gentler or, you know, less aggressive in business because her story, you know, she was a bit aggressive. I mean, she was the founder of that brand along with a shoe designer named Jimmy Choo. So she was working as an accessory editor at Vogue, and she's heard of Jimmy Choo, this, like, cobbler who works in London, and he's the go to designer for made to order shoes for very rich ladies. Right. But he doesn't have a brand. And it's Melon who thinks, okay, shoes are so big right now and people are really willing to pay a premium for them. Can I take Jimmy Choo from this handcrafted secret of all of these women to a global brand? And she. She did that.
- [10:19]
Michelle
Yeah. It's like, it's so incredible what she really accomplished. And to go back to, like, kind of her upbringing and how she got to that point. She was born in 1967 in London into this wealthy family, as we were saying. But one thing to point out is her mom, she was this cold, controlling kind of a mother. She was emotionally abusive and physically abusive to Tamara. And that was something that really defined her childhood, her upbringing, because she ended up going to these two elite boarding schools and was even expelled from them for partying too much. She immediately went into this kind of addict mode of looking for dopamine in other places and needing that to replace her mother and all the things that her mother did to her and took from her and all of that. And so there's this void that she needed to fill. And I think that that's where a lot of her ambition probably stems from too, because then she went to rehab and has been sober for decades now. And in a sense, I think this business was also a way for her to prove herself and break free from her mom.
- [11:36]
Tamara Mellon
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And, you know, in some cases, you feel like you can't win, right, because you feel like you have to always prove yourself, but you can't have sharp elbows. And I think that also is something that you see in Tamara Mellon's. Right.
- [11:50]
Michelle
So then, okay, her upbringing, of course, all of this. One thing to point out, too, that she always acknowledges that her dad was a huge influence in her story, too. He was a really solid figure in her childhood and upbringing. He was a mentor. He helped fund the beginning of Jimmy Choo. He was an investor, and they were sharing that investment together. So essentially, she was getting like 25% of the business and her dad was getting the other 25. Jimmy Choo is getting 50%. And so that's. I think one thing to acknowledge or point out, too, is that her dad was such a savvy businessman and was really part of the success of her story as well. But then her British Vogue job. I wanted to point out, too, that you'd mentioned how she was using Jimmy Choo for some of the photo shoots and all of that and creating these one off shoes. She realized after the fact, she didn't know this at the time, but she realized she was designing those shoes she was having him make. And so she was like, okay, here's the broader vision. We're going to do a photo shoot that's going to be very like, gladiator themed. And I want you to create shoes that have straps going all the way up to the calf or ankle or knee. And I want buttons here and studs here. I want the straps to look like this. Like she's very much basically designing the shoe that he was creating and kept doing that again and again. And it was also building up his name. He started to have a name in British Vogue, and he was also creating one of a kind shoes, I guess, Shoe Couture. If you could say, for all of these clients in London, including Princess Diana. And then one other thing to call out is she ended up getting fired from that British Vogue job. And that was a huge turning point in her story. The thing that the manager or the person that fired her said, quote, unquote, we think that you're outgrowing your job or your role here at British Vogue. And I think that's. That's so funny to think of. And it means two different things, obviously, but also just a way of them to like, passively push her out and say, why don't you go do something else? And so she did. She ended up getting sober and then having this idea and baking Jimmy Choo and bugging him for like, I think a year or more to start this big Jimmy Choo brand together.
- [14:20]
Tamara Mellon
It's so funny that they told her she had outgrown her position. It's like, that is a very passive aggressive way. Way of firing someone. Right? Like, yeah. But yes, I mean, luckily she did have the, like, drive and the vision. And as you said, like, her father did help her.
- [14:35]
Michelle
Yeah, absolutely. So her father invested £150,000 in Jimmy Choo in 1996, which is a lot of money today. And she went into this thinking that she was going to be the business side of things. Jimmy Choo is going to be the designer side of things. And she goes to Italy, finds a manufacturer to help make these shoes that were going to be ready to wear and is basically like, okay, Jimmy, start designing. And months and months were going by and nothing was happening. And she realized he couldn't design. He was always a cobbler being told what kind of a shoe somebody wanted and what design they wanted and all of that. He knew the craft and detail that went into making a shoe and the material and all of that, but he wasn't necessarily a designer. And so out of necessity, her role became two roles. She was entrepreneur and designer. And she ended up designing the entire first collection of Jimmy Choose. And luckily, he had a niece that worked with him, and she can actually sketch shoes. And they needed these sketches to be able to, like, get these designs on paper into the manufacturers. And so under Tamara's vision, Sandra Choi, the niece of Jimmy Choo, was sketching Tamara's designs. And I think they had about 30 styles in that first collection. And that ended up catching the eye of Saks Fifth Avenue. They placed an order for 3,000 pairs of shoes. And that first collection was seen in.
- [16:17]
Tamara Mellon
The Sex and the City.
- [16:18]
Michelle
Once people were catching on and or seeing this first collection, I believe it was one of the writers that rode it into the episode. She's wearing one of their iconic initial designs, which is like this feather sandal, and she loses her shoe. It's kind of like a Cinderella moment. And she says, my chew. And it became, you know, such an easy, memorable moment that immortalized the brand.
- [16:49]
Tamara Mellon
Yeah. At that time, when the first Jimmy Choo collection debuted, the shoe that was in style was the Manolo Blahnik style, which is a very thin, very high, very delicate stiletto that's difficult to walk in. Very expensive, very beautifully crafted, sometimes a very narrow toe bed and then a lot of embellishments. So Manolo Naplonic, for instance, was known for his, like jewel encrusted shoe brooches, you know, and Jimmy Choo just kind of like jumped right onto that design trend of these fantastical shoes. Right. So the stiletto, like, comes from design imagination. It was inspired by shoes worn by pin up girls in drawings that the soldiers would have hanging in their lockers in wartime. And then designers post war brought these shoes to life. So there's always a sense that the stiletto is like a fantasy shoe, that it's not really a shoe that's about getting things done in. Although, of course in the, like, early 2000s of sex and the City era, women did start wearing them all over the place to the office to convey power to parties, even though they're going to be standing for hours on end and they're like doing things to compensate, such as, like taking cabs and finding ways to rest their feet the next day and sort of dealing with the foot issues that come up. But there's this element in the shoe design world where, you know, the higher the better, the more delicate the better. It was just a moment that was all about, you know, being Cinderella, like you said, being the main character in a fantasy story.
- [18:26]
Michelle
Yes. Oh, that is such great history. I don't think I really put those things together. The fact that, like pin up girls were wearing these stilettos too. And I remember hearing Tamara talking about shoes and how she always had a thing for shoes. And one thing that she takes pride in is knowing this idea of a foot fetish and how to make a foot look sexy. And she knew that going into all these designs was, how can we make this foot, like really shine?
- [18:59]
Tamara Mellon
The two words that just came into my head when you said that were toe cleavage. That was like a big thing in that moment. Right. Like, if you had shallow enough toe box that it showed off the line between your big toe and your second toe, that was toe cleavage. And, you know, everyone had a perfect pedicure because, you know, everyone was wearing these like delicate, slender sandals. Right. It really was about making the foot look sexy and making the foot a sex object and an art object, which is kind of hard to do.
- [19:31]
Michelle
Yeah. And like her having that big picture moment again of going from design to knowing how to market that design, which is, of course Sex and the City and all of these celebrities that were wearing the shoes on red carpets and her putting it into the hands of fashion editors and all of that. She really knew how to market these shoes, who to market them to, who her audience was, and had that full big picture moment. Yeah.
- [20:00]
Tamara Mellon
Celebrities have always been, you know, fashion icons for people to look up to, but that got kicked into really high gear around the turn of the millennium. Right. Like, celebrities were the original influencers, and it was people like Tamra Mellon who recognized that very early on, who thought to themselves, you know, let me get these shoes onto the red carpets.
- [20:21]
Michelle
I don't think it's said enough that she is a shoe designer. Like, she may not be actually, like, on a computer designing the shoe. She might not be actually sketching these shoes, but she is the vision behind it. And she's the one who's saying, like, let's do a pointed toe pump and create this elongated silhouette. And, like, just constantly adjusting the designs, too. Or like, Sandra Choi's designs, too, to make sure that it really was exactly what she wanted. And she was all down to embellishing the shoes and getting the right embellishments and materials. She would use, like, snake and suede and patent leather textures to add more drama. And again, that, like, feathered sandal, which you don't really see even today all that much, was such a unique part of that, like, Sex and the City shoot as well.
- [21:14]
Tamara Mellon
Yeah, I think that's such a great point. Like, she herself is such a clothes horse. She said that she gets rid of her whole wardrobe with every season. Right.
- [21:24]
Michelle
Oh, wow.
- [21:25]
Tamara Mellon
And obviously, that's like, a very fancy, privileged perspective, but she's very upfront about it. Like, she wants the newest. She always wants to be on trend and in style, and she knows her customer. Right. Because she is one of those women. So I think those two things combined made her very powerful as a designer. It's like she has an eye, she has taste, and also she knows what the women who can spend this kind of money, which is hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a pair of shoes, what they really want. Mm.
- [21:54]
Michelle
And so this is where the part of her story gets a little chaotic. And so from 2001 to 2011 was just this, like, constant cycle of private equity takeovers, her losing control of her own brand and company and designs. And so it kind of starts out in 2001 where Jimmy choose. He's like, I'm out. He's been in it for five years. This was not ever really what he wanted. He realizes that and sells his shares to a private equity firm. And this was what Brought in outside investors into the company. By no choice of Tamara or her dad, There was a series of financial buyouts. Different private equity firms took control. They were the owners of the company, essentially. And she was just, like, working for the brand that she started. And so she was always just, like, trying so hard to get the creativity back under control, to make sure the quality of the shoes were strong, to make sure customers were happy. And the brand was so profitable that all of these private equity firms kept wanting in on that pie. Like, she built something that became iconic. And it was because of the designs and because of the demand of it that really grew this multi million dollar brand. And then a really sad turning point was in 2004 when her father passed away. That was the person that was really helping through all of these financial discussions, too, and kind of the man on her side, basically, because she's just this woman in the early 2000s who had hardly any respect, especially from these private equity firms. And so it was really helpful for her to have her dad on her side this whole time. And so that was a huge loss for her as well.
- [23:51]
Tamara Mellon
I think it's also important to point out that the breakup with Jimmy Choo was not a warm and fuzzy one. They warred in the press a little bit. There was a lot of contentious stuff between the two of them. And then, yeah, when she loses her father. Right. She's really unmoored. I think there was a divorce in there somewhere. She married Matthew Mellon of the Mellon family, and they, I believe, met in some sort of addiction treatment and then broke up. So she still has her personal demons throughout all of this. And I'm sure being constantly under attack by your own investors is probably not an easy cross to bear. I was trying to remember what year she got her obe, because, you know, that, of course, is such an amazing accomplishment for a shoe designer.
- [24:39]
Michelle
Her from the Queen.
- [24:40]
Tamara Mellon
Yeah. I can't remember what year it was, but she was at least recognized by England for bringing so much fashion perspective to the country. You know, the Queen Knights creators who, in her view, bring, like, respect and admiration to Great Britain. And, you know, there hadn't been a really huge global British designer in a long time, Right?
- [25:07]
Michelle
Yeah. So it looks like it was in 2010. It was on the Queen's birthday honors list. There's, like, maybe a handful that won in the fashion industry before her. PRU Acton in 1982. That was an Australian designer, Mary Quant in 1966, for her contributions to fashion, particularly popularizing the miniskirt. Bruce Oldfield received it in 1990 for his couture designs and dressing high profile clients like Princess Diana. It's so interesting, though now, in the context of it, to think that Jimmy Choo didn't get that award. Tamara Mellon did.
- [25:52]
Tamara Mellon
There hadn't been a really renowned, yeah, English shoe designer in a long time, let alone a female one. So she did get her flowers. Like, I do think that that's a really big deal. And if you look at, like her social media presence or whatever, there's OBI all over it. You know, she's proud, as she should be.
- [26:09]
Michelle
That's good. Yeah. That is a huge accomplishment. And so with this, like, chaos of everything happening, she also had her daughter. There was a lot of conflict with her mother still. The boardrooms that she was in became unbearable. She was often the only woman at the table and she was constantly having to, like, beg to be part of the brand, beg for more shares. These people didn't value her. And it was just so wild because she's the reason for Jimmy Choo. Like, once she did fight for that and get a little respect, then she was part of some of the deals too. Like, we'll buy it for this much as long as Tamara is still part of the brand and will be for such and such years or whatever it might be. And she had all of these financial big achievements, higher revenues, more sales. She had all of this stuff that was hanging over her head as expectations as part of the deal. And she was basically the one doing it. And so her exit, too is in 2008. This was more of a personal betrayal because her mother sued her for. For trying to take part of her fortune. It was just this wild, messy back and forth family court case where there was confusion about who got what from Jimmy Choo and from the shares. And with her father passing like that made it even more confusing because her mom thought that her daughter owed her all this other money that she didn't. And it was just like very painful and such a public thing to be on display for Tamara and her mom. And I think this just like hurt her even more in the process. And then it was in 2011 that she was basically forced out of Jimmy Choo. They were making it ridiculous for her to even want to stay on. She was essentially not making that much anymore. They just kept squeezing her out more and more. And she was at one point basically investing more in Jimmy Choo than they were paying her. So she decided to walk away. But she walked away with 85 million, I believe. Don't know if that number is exact. But she walked away with enough money to be able to start her own brand, essentially.
- [28:34]
Tamara Mellon
Yeah. And I mean that starting her own brand, starting Tamara Mellon, it hasn't been the smoothest process either, has it? You know, but one of the things that she's done in recent years, which it follows the trends in the fashion industry in general, is that she made her business direct to consumer. So she decided to cut out the middleman. Right. She's no longer selling in department stores, and she seems a lot happier. She's still selling shoes, for the most part, that embody the Jimmy Choo spirit. And it still is these very high heel stilettos, like skinny heel, wispy sandals, strong decorative elements, you know, they're still. She's still selling the Jimmy Choo fantasy. It's just under her own name now, but I think there's still a market for it. And I actually think those kinds of shoes are going to come back more and more, to be honest.
- [29:22]
Michelle
Yeah. In fact, I think that she really made a point of learning all of these things from Jimmy Choo and now applying that to her new brand. And so I've seen that she has these, like, little pillows in the designs now for comfort, and she takes pride in providing a more comfortable stiletto.
- [29:43]
Tamara Mellon
I'm so glad that you brought that up because, yes, I was looking at the pillow top and I'm like, this is where the woman comes into the female shoe designer part. Like, when I was reporting on shoes more frequently, it was only ever female designers who were trying to solve this eternal question of how do we make a high heel that's comfortable? And, you know, there were designers out there using tech that were trying to do things like individualized foot mapping that I thought was really cool. And I think this pillow top idea, which is basically like a tempur pedic insole in. In these high heels, is a great idea. I haven't tried them on, but I, you know, call me. I'd be willing. Like, it sounds awesome.
- [30:21]
Michelle
I'm so intrigued. Yeah.
- [30:23]
Tamara Mellon
I also think that Tamara had. And I don't know that she still does, but I. This is like, coming back into my mind. I think she sold a CBD foot cream that was supposed to help your feet not feel uncomfortable while you're wearing high heels. Like, before and after if you used it. It was supposed to, like, ease the. Let's call a spade a spade foot pain that you get from these kinds of shoes, wearing them too much. So she is working through these issues. You know, I don't know that she's going to be the one who comes up with the magic bullet. But like, she is thinking about them, which is kind of more than I can say for Christian Louboutin, who sort of like wear them or not.
- [30:58]
Michelle
That's true. You mentioned that Tamara Mellon's new brand hasn't been all sunshine and roses.
- [31:05]
Tamara Mellon
Yeah, I don't know when I said sunshine and roses.
- [31:07]
Michelle
Sunshine and rainbows. So just to touch on that too, she made all of these changes in terms of I'm never going to have private equity firms be a part of my brand. She's been getting more of these, like seed funding rounds and things like that. And she even hired a female CEO. She really wanted to have a much larger female team too. And that was never Jimmy Choo's priority. And then, yes, this direct to consumer model that she's been doing and like really focusing on women and equal pay and all of that too, which was such a huge priority for her. But they did run into all these setbacks. So she rushed into production, she admitted, and made bad manufacturing deals and ran out of cash. And so manufacturers were being really difficult and she had to file for bankruptcy. And the press just like featured this as like this big fail moment again for her, which is so frustrating that I feel like sometimes a lot of the world just wants to like watch women fail and call it out as soon as it happens. But she never saw that as a failure because really, like chapter 11 or file for bankruptcy was a moment for her to kind of restructure things and restart. And the brand is still around today. So it was obvious that she still dove back in, worked even harder and of course, you know, succeeded again.
- [32:42]
Tamara Mellon
Yeah, she's such a survivor. Right? I think that's the theme of this conversation. She's such totally a survivor and it makes her success all the more admirable because she has had so many personal and professional setbacks. And that's the way it goes. You know, when you are working and creating for as long as she has been, you know, things are going to go sideways sometimes and she has gotten back up and strapped on her beautiful shoes and made it work.
- [33:09]
Michelle
Yeah. That is such a good overview of her life and her career and everything is. She really is just like a go getter. And I admire her so much. And she's not just a businesswoman, she's also a designer. And I think people forget that all the time. And I think that's why this episode is so fun and interesting to go into is like, can we call her a designer? Like, have, have we really done that yet? And like, let's finally do that. Because she understands what women want in the shoe world and, you know, she's still designing today. She's still pushing the industry forward and looking for those opportunities to transform this industry.
- [33:51]
Tamara Mellon
I totally agree. I think that it's very fair to call her a designer. And, you know, she's someone who wears a lot of hats. Right. She's been a leader in business, she's a public figure, she's not quite a household name, but she's been pretty famous and celebrity adjacent for a long time. But yes, at her heart, one of the reasons that she's continued to persist in the fashion world is because she's great at what she does.
- [34:15]
Michelle
Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious to know what is your, like, biggest takeaway from her story? I know we've kind of already been touching on that, but is there anything else you want to say about her?
- [34:26]
Tamara Mellon
No, I don't know. I mean, I think that again, her effort to incorporate comfort into some of these really uncomfortable types of shoes, it really interests me. I think it's something to watch. Right. Because that's a, that's a conversation that's happening right now. That's something that she's working on right now. So I want to keep an eye on that. I want to see if she is able to come up with something, if these pillow top shoes actually can help solve that problem a little bit. Because I am a person who loves impractical shoes, but the older I get, the less often I can wear them. So fix that for me. Tamara Mellon, please. Yes. This is my personal plea.
- [35:07]
Michelle
Yes. And she's got your back too, because I feel like she's like even more of a woman's woman today than ever before. And she's been to hell and back, basically. And she's really a pioneer in the fact that she had to like really get through those late 90s days of being the few and being the single woman in such a male dominated world and, you know, like really getting through all of that and then now being this success story and this advocate for women and advocate for female entrepreneurs. And she, you know, shares so much of her story and hopes that other people will learn from it too. And so I admire so much of what she's doing and I hope that she becomes more of a household name than she is now. Like, can she be as known as Christian Louboutin and admired as much as him? Can we put her. Can we put a woman on a pedestal like we put a man on?
- [36:05]
Tamara Mellon
I think we should.
- [36:06]
Michelle
Yeah.
- [36:07]
Tamara Mellon
I think we should add her to that conversation.
- [36:09]
Michelle
Yes.
- [36:10]
Tamara Mellon
You know, Jimmy Choo got the name recognition, but she was really the heartbreak of that brand in a lot of ways. So I think it's time that she does get recognized as being among the.
- [36:20]
Michelle
Top shoe designers out there, 100%. Thank you so much for joining me today and for all of your expertise on this topic.
- [36:30]
Tamara Mellon
Oh, thank you for having me. It was so much fun talking to.
- [36:33]
Michelle
You and good luck with your book and future books to come. I feel like it's always exciting to see and learn from other authors and especially ones that are really like building up women.
- [36:46]
Tamara Mellon
Oh, thanks. Yeah, that's very much what I want to do. So thank you for saying that.
- [36:51]
Amber Asey
That's it for today's episode. If there's one thing to take away from Tamara Mellon's story, it's that resilience is about thriving. She built Jimmy Choo from the ground up, only to be forced out by corporate suits. She launched her own brand only to face bankruptcy. And she fought through betrayal, lawsuits, and the ever present scrutiny of the press. But through it all, she never stopped designing, never stopped innovating, and never stopped reclaiming what was hers. A huge thank you to Richelle Bergstein for joining me and sharing her insights and expertise into the cultural significance of shoes. If you haven't read Women from the Ankle Down, I highly recommend picking up a copy. I'll link that in the show notes as well as her new book, the Genius of Judy. And if you enjoyed this episode episode, don't forget to leave a review, share it with a friend, and support the podcast because every little bit helps. Continue the stories of women in design. And as always, let's redesign history by celebrating women.