As Tamara Mellon strutted away from the Jimmy Choo shoe empire last week, the predictions began as to what she will do next.
Industry reports suggest that she is working on an eponymous luxury lifestyle brand. Mellon herself is keeping schtum, because she is officially a Choo employee until the end of the year.
In an interview last week, she enigmatically said: "Anyone who knows me knows there will be a new venture afoot; this is not the end. My passion is creating things, and I have a big vision."
In the 15 years since she started the footwear brand with Hackney cobbler Jimmy Choo, the shoes and Mellon have gone global. At the last count, sales were £150m and, thanks to her, its high heels are now a red-carpet staple for A-list stars such as Elle Macpherson, Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Mellon's personal stock has also rocketed as she straddled the business pages and gossip columns with revealing photo shoots — in one wearing only a strategically placed cat and a pair of her stilettos. She has had a roll call of famous boyfriends, including Hollywood actor Christian Slater, and played a role in showbusiness legal battles.
Brand experts think "brand Mellon" has sufficient clout to launch more than a clothing line, suggesting she could even put her surname – albeit one retained from her failed marriage to US banking heir Matthew Mellon — to an upmarket hotel or restaurant.
"It is very difficult to start something from scratch but Jimmy Choo has given enough cachet to her own name to make a success of it," says Graham Hales, chief executive of brand consultancy Interbrand. "Tom Ford has been able to do all sorts of things since he left Gucci because he is seen as being the artistic credibility behind the brand."
With a personal fortune of £150m, finding the cash to finance her next venture is unlikely to be a problem. The entrepreneur has revealed her inbox had been "flooded" with emails from people who want to work with her since the resignation became public knowledge.
Mellon has said she was a "no-hoper" at her expensive boarding school. She attended the same Swiss finishing school as Princess Diana and her early career included stints in PR and as a fashion assistant on Vogue,
She started the company with Jimmy Choo in 1996 with a £150,000 loan from her late father Tommy Yeardye, a successful businessman who co-founded the Vidal Sassoon hair products empire.
Choo sold up in 2001 but Mellon stayed on for a ride that has seen the business change hands four times, each time for an ever larger sum.
That process culminated in this May's sale to Labelux, the luxury goods group backed by Germany's billionaire Reimann family, for £500m – nearly three times the sum paid by the firm's private equity owners four years ago. Mellon continued to serve as chief creative officer but no longer had any financial interest in the group following the acquisition.
Her business success was recognised last year, when the government enlisted the 44-year-old to be one the UK's business ambassadors.
Her appointment, together with that of handbag designer Anya Hindmarch and Burberry chief executive Angela Ahrendts, saw her labelled a "fashbassador" by the women's magazine Grazia.
Neil Clifford, chief executive of Kurt Geiger, the shoe group which works closely with Jimmy Choo in high-end department stores such as Harrods, credits both Mellon and chief executive Joshua Schulman — who is also leaving — for the brand's success: "Tamara instinctively understood the Jimmy Choo customer, because she is that customer; Joshua was the business brain. Together, it was the right mix of art and science.
"The Jimmy Choo product is genuinely fabulous in terms of quality and style and is made in the best factories in Italy. They will both be missed."
Few would question Mellon's business nose. Choo sales took off after she targeted high-profile events such as the Oscars to get the brand on Hollywood's radar, offering to fit out celebrities for the awards ceremony.
The brand's arrival was confirmed when Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker's character in the TV show Sex and the City, revealed it was her favourite shoe store.
Like her customers, Mellon has a sense of the dramatic. Four years ago, her ex-husband was acquitted of hiring private investigators to hack into her computer during their divorce and the court case gave a glimpse into the couple's gilded but dysfunctional life, together with parts of the trial likened to a scene from Dallas or Dynasty. For her day in court, Mellon wore a show-stopping outfit with £2,000 four-inch, crocodile-skin Jimmy Choos.
Mellon has become synonymous with the Jimmy Choo brand and this year was even featured falling out of a dress in a steamy advert for its new perfume. Significantly, she is thought to retain the rights to use her own name, which means that unlike designers such as Jil Sander and Roland Mouret, who left the companies they created along with the rights to the brand name, she is free to put it to something else.
The hard part, brand experts say, will be striking gold twice as many entrepreneurs struggle to repeat their initial success. "Her black book must be incredible," says PR consultant Mark Borkowski, but he warns the stakes are high: "If she gets it wrong, people won't look at her in the same way and it could all start to unravel."
Luxury goods companies increasingly bill themselves as "lifestyle" brands, which is code for dressing customers from head to toe in expensive clobber before moving on to their homes. A glimpse at the kind of products Mellon might endorse if she goes down that route was revealed in a recent photo shoot of her New York apartment.
One shot of her living room has Mellon, in her signature stilletos, reclining on a cream leather sofa under six giant pictures of coiled snakes. The effect is completed by a leopardskin rug and a takeaway from McDonald's.
With Mellon keeping her head down, for the time being at least, she is keeping her followers guessing.
She bowed out from Jimmy Choo on Twitter, thanking her followers for their support but with a tantalising: "I will keep you posted."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk
Industry reports suggest that she is working on an eponymous luxury lifestyle brand. Mellon herself is keeping schtum, because she is officially a Choo employee until the end of the year.
In an interview last week, she enigmatically said: "Anyone who knows me knows there will be a new venture afoot; this is not the end. My passion is creating things, and I have a big vision."
In the 15 years since she started the footwear brand with Hackney cobbler Jimmy Choo, the shoes and Mellon have gone global. At the last count, sales were £150m and, thanks to her, its high heels are now a red-carpet staple for A-list stars such as Elle Macpherson, Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Mellon's personal stock has also rocketed as she straddled the business pages and gossip columns with revealing photo shoots — in one wearing only a strategically placed cat and a pair of her stilettos. She has had a roll call of famous boyfriends, including Hollywood actor Christian Slater, and played a role in showbusiness legal battles.
"It is very difficult to start something from scratch but Jimmy Choo has given enough cachet to her own name to make a success of it," says Graham Hales, chief executive of brand consultancy Interbrand. "Tom Ford has been able to do all sorts of things since he left Gucci because he is seen as being the artistic credibility behind the brand."
With a personal fortune of £150m, finding the cash to finance her next venture is unlikely to be a problem. The entrepreneur has revealed her inbox had been "flooded" with emails from people who want to work with her since the resignation became public knowledge.
Mellon has said she was a "no-hoper" at her expensive boarding school. She attended the same Swiss finishing school as Princess Diana and her early career included stints in PR and as a fashion assistant on Vogue,
She started the company with Jimmy Choo in 1996 with a £150,000 loan from her late father Tommy Yeardye, a successful businessman who co-founded the Vidal Sassoon hair products empire.
Choo sold up in 2001 but Mellon stayed on for a ride that has seen the business change hands four times, each time for an ever larger sum.
That process culminated in this May's sale to Labelux, the luxury goods group backed by Germany's billionaire Reimann family, for £500m – nearly three times the sum paid by the firm's private equity owners four years ago. Mellon continued to serve as chief creative officer but no longer had any financial interest in the group following the acquisition.
Her business success was recognised last year, when the government enlisted the 44-year-old to be one the UK's business ambassadors.
Her appointment, together with that of handbag designer Anya Hindmarch and Burberry chief executive Angela Ahrendts, saw her labelled a "fashbassador" by the women's magazine Grazia.
Neil Clifford, chief executive of Kurt Geiger, the shoe group which works closely with Jimmy Choo in high-end department stores such as Harrods, credits both Mellon and chief executive Joshua Schulman — who is also leaving — for the brand's success: "Tamara instinctively understood the Jimmy Choo customer, because she is that customer; Joshua was the business brain. Together, it was the right mix of art and science.
"The Jimmy Choo product is genuinely fabulous in terms of quality and style and is made in the best factories in Italy. They will both be missed."
Few would question Mellon's business nose. Choo sales took off after she targeted high-profile events such as the Oscars to get the brand on Hollywood's radar, offering to fit out celebrities for the awards ceremony.
The brand's arrival was confirmed when Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker's character in the TV show Sex and the City, revealed it was her favourite shoe store.
Like her customers, Mellon has a sense of the dramatic. Four years ago, her ex-husband was acquitted of hiring private investigators to hack into her computer during their divorce and the court case gave a glimpse into the couple's gilded but dysfunctional life, together with parts of the trial likened to a scene from Dallas or Dynasty. For her day in court, Mellon wore a show-stopping outfit with £2,000 four-inch, crocodile-skin Jimmy Choos.
Mellon has become synonymous with the Jimmy Choo brand and this year was even featured falling out of a dress in a steamy advert for its new perfume. Significantly, she is thought to retain the rights to use her own name, which means that unlike designers such as Jil Sander and Roland Mouret, who left the companies they created along with the rights to the brand name, she is free to put it to something else.
The hard part, brand experts say, will be striking gold twice as many entrepreneurs struggle to repeat their initial success. "Her black book must be incredible," says PR consultant Mark Borkowski, but he warns the stakes are high: "If she gets it wrong, people won't look at her in the same way and it could all start to unravel."
Luxury goods companies increasingly bill themselves as "lifestyle" brands, which is code for dressing customers from head to toe in expensive clobber before moving on to their homes. A glimpse at the kind of products Mellon might endorse if she goes down that route was revealed in a recent photo shoot of her New York apartment.
One shot of her living room has Mellon, in her signature stilletos, reclining on a cream leather sofa under six giant pictures of coiled snakes. The effect is completed by a leopardskin rug and a takeaway from McDonald's.
With Mellon keeping her head down, for the time being at least, she is keeping her followers guessing.
She bowed out from Jimmy Choo on Twitter, thanking her followers for their support but with a tantalising: "I will keep you posted."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk
Why is it very big deal for fans. It's true that it's not yet the kind. They just need to be patient and be positive.
ReplyDelete