Soul to Sole: Bringing Beauty to its Feet

Yes, that was the title of Jimmy Choo's slides presentation at the recent IWEC 2007 . How true indeed as his creations were made to beautify thy feet. Just look at some of his must have and to die for high heels. Simple yet elegant and oh so lady like... I can imagine myself walking in his shoes and feeling like a princess, so graceful, confident, sexy and beautiful...

Before attending the congress, I was hoping and wishing that there will be some lucky draws and that maybe just maybe I could win a pair of Jimmy Choo's shoes. Or maybe he would give away some of his beautifully crafted shoes to some lucky participants including me...but unfortunately, that is just a wishful thinking of mine as none of it ever happens...sigh...

Anyway, let's talk about the designer himself, YBhg. Prof. Dato' Jimmy Choo, OBE is a remarkable person who made his first shoes when he was only 11 years old! His dad was a shoes designer and naturally following the footsteps of his dad coupled with his own interest, he pursued a career in the same field as shoes designer. Trained at London College of Fashion, which was then known as Cordwainers College, the 46 years old Penangnite graduated with distinction. He started his shoes making business in an ex-hospital building in Britain.

His brand name started to emerge tremendously after Vogue did an eight-page spread featuring his quality footwear in 1988. Since then, he never looked back and of coz his most famous client is the late Princess Diana, whom he worked for about 7 years. During those years he was not allowed to tell anybody that he was the shoes designer for the Princess. It was only after she passed on that people knew who made her elegant sexy shoes..

Jimmy Choo is no longer involved in the fashion house that he first founded. Initially, he sold half of his shares to the lady who once featured him in the Vogue and his niece. However, the former Vogue friend i.e. Tamara Mellon bought the fashion house completely in 2001.

Today, Jimmy Choo is helping budding shoes designers and makers in Malaysia by setting up an institute for shoe making. He is also involved in many charity works as he believes in giving back to the community. He is also a proud Malaysian who doesn't mind to promote Malaysia wherever he goes. In fact during the Congress, one of the speakers, Maria Brown, MD for Asian Food Channel asked him if he agrees to be in AFC show featuring Malaysian cuisines in which he happily agreed. Another speaker i.e Chin-Ning Chu requested to take a photo with him so that she can show to her publisher that she actually met Jimmy Choo - she has a chapter in her book (The Art of War for Women) that used Jimmy Choo's name to represent the word "high heels". Jimmy Choo is also a fun and witty guy as he kids many times during his talk. When asked about where does he gets his inspirations from. He said " As long as you love what you're doing, the inspirations will come naturally". Among all the speakers, he was by far the most popular one. People were queuing at the mic eager to ask him questions. The speakers even requested the MC that they wanted to take pictures with Jimmy Choo right after his talk.

And of coz yours truly didn't want to miss out too as I shamelessly went to the front and took pictures with him for remembrance. Mind you, I wasn't the only one as there were some prominent people i.e. Datuks who were as eager as me too! So people, disappointingly to say that I didn't get a pair of Jimmy Choo's shoes but at least I managed to take a couple of pictures with him hehe...

So that's my not quite up close personal with Jimmy Choo folks! ;p