Tamara Mellon

Tamara Mellon is the owner of the world famous Jimmy Choo lines of designer shoes. Tamara is the daughter of Tommy Yeardye, the founder of Vidal Sassoon. Born in London, she grew up in Beverly Hills, California and attended Heathfield boarding school in Ascot, Berkshire.

She worked as accessories editor for Vogue magazine in 1996, she met shoe designer Jimmy Choo and saw potential in his handmade shoes. She invested hundreds of thousands of pounds into his company. By 2001, Mellon, ambitious to expand the brand, brokered a deal with Equinox Luxury Holdings Ltd., which acquired Choo's share of the ready-to-wear business for $15 million.

In 2000 she married Matthew Mellon II, an heir to the Mellon family fortune, with whom she had one child. The couple divorced in 2005. She currently resides in Chelsea.

References

• Freeman, Hadley. "The Guardian profile: Tamara Mellon," The Guardian, 5 November 2004