#79: Tamara Mellon: Founder, Entrepreneur, and Shoe Designer

No Limits with Rebecca Jarvis

ABC News

Business, Careers

4.7 • 703 Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2018

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Tamara Mellon would give her friends wardrobe makeovers in school, it hadn't yet occurred to her that one day she would co-found the luxury shoe brand, Jimmy Choo. Armed with a ?£150,000 loan from her father, 27 year old Tamara teamed up with Jimmy Choo, an East London shoe cobbler, and launched the company in 1996. 16 years later, she left the company and in 2016 (after a failed first attempt) launched her namesake shoe label by breaking industry rules and selling direct to consumer. On this episode, Tamara opens up about her journey in the fashion industry from her department store days to British Vogue and Jimmy Choo, disrupting the fashion industry and why she went digital, how she's advocating for equal pay and her advice for when you feel stuck in life. Congratulations to our No Limits Entrepreneur of the Week: Frances Prado, CEO and Inventor of Hanging Secrets Find out more: https://hangingsecrets.com/ Want to be a featured NLEOTW? Know someone who should? Send your nominations to [email protected] Don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review! It’s easy! Click here: http://bit.ly/2ks4f90 ABOUT REBECCA JARVIS: Rebecca Jarvis is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and the Chief Biz, Tech and Econ correspondent for ABC News. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

Transcript

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0:00.0	I couldn't negotiate what I thought was a fair pay. And actually when I looked at my competitors
0:06.8	in the business, I was probably at a quarter of what they were making. So I decided I could either,
0:12.9	I could stay here another five years, or I could leave now and start from scratch again.
0:21.3	From ABC, it's no limits.
0:24.5	I'm Rebecca Jarvis, and each week we're talking to the most bold and influential women playing
0:30.1	at the top of their game, trying to demystify success and what it really takes to get there,
0:36.2	and all the trade-offs.
0:37.6	Whether you're looking for answers or you just want to hear a good story, you're in the right place.
0:43.7	On today's episode, how a high school dropout became the co-founder of Jimmy Chew
0:50.4	and why she made the decision to leave the immensely popular brand she started to build her
0:55.4	own namesake label, Tamara Mellon. What Tamara's learned about choosing the right partners in business,
1:01.9	advocating for equal pay, and how to know when the time is right to pull the rip court on a business.
1:08.2	Here's entrepreneur and shoe designer, Tamara Mellon.
1:12.2	Tamara Mellon, welcome to No Limits. Thank you. Very happy to be here. I'm thrilled to have
1:17.6	you with us. So I was looking at your website, coveting all of the shoes, all of the boots,
1:22.3	the beautiful things, but I love how it says co-founded Jimmy Chew, 1996, 20 plus years later now, still obsessed with shoes, but not doing things the traditional way.
1:32.8	No, exactly. So even though I'm still obsessed with designing shoes and I'm still obsessed with quality, I still make my shoes in the same way in Italian factories that I did at Jimmy Chew.
1:45.8	But now I'm selling them in a different way. So the business model is totally different. I design no collections.
1:51.9	I just put new things up every month that is season appropriate, so we don't have to buy things
1:56.8	in the wrong season anymore. You know, traditionally we all deliver collections and,
2:01.0	you know, four months ahead, you know, coats in July and spring, summer, and January and
2:05.5	February, who cares? You know, you want to buy something today and you want to wear it tomorrow.
	...

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