In My Shoes: A Memoir (27 page)

Matthew and me at a boar shoot on a friend’s estate in Germany around 1999.

Minty and me in Ibiza in 2003. This was the summer that Matthew disappeared for three days after clubbing all night. It was the last straw in our marriage.

Minty, age two, posing with me for a picture in my house in London.

Our first-ever store on Motcomb Street, in London, a perfect location for attracting a mix of professional women and the ladies who lunch. It was a small space, but we gave it the right look.

The interior of our first London store.

Standing in front of our first U.S. store in Beverly Hills in 1998.

Sandra Choi, Hannah Colman, and me out to lunch.

Working in the factory in Italy where we produced our first collection. I spent many long hours there perfecting every design.

The early years at Jimmy Choo with some of our first designs from the 2001 collection.

Robert Bensoussan and I attended a Jimmy Choo dinner in Miami during Art Basel to open our Miami store. I put on a brave face for the event, which took place in December 2006 during the hostile takeover.

Photograph by PatrickMcMullan.com

Jimmy Choo, the Chinese cobbler who became my cofounder.

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Josh Schulman, former CEO of Jimmy Choo and current president of Bergdorf Goodman, and I visited China in 2007, where we opened our first store in Beijing.

At Jimmy Choo’s tenth anniversary party, Sandra and I held a cake decorated with the iconic feathery shoe worn by Carrie Bradshaw that made the Jimmy Choo brand a fixture on
Sex and the City
.

Dave M. Benett/Getty Images