The creative director breaks down her career at Jimmy Choo and how the brand has evolved with pop culture and navigated fashion history since day one
When someone has worked in one industry and at the same company for nearly 30 years, it is worthy of note; when that company is a household name, it is extraordinary. Sandra Choi, the creative director at Jimmy Choo since its inception, joined founder “Uncle Jimmy” at the shoe-making atelier when she was 19, and has been instrumental in its becoming a global fashion powerhouse.
“That term ‘nepo baby’ was very much used over the last 12 months or so—I can assure you, I’m not one of those,” says Choi. Born on the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom, she spent five years with her grandparents in Hong Kong before returning to the UK as a teenager and finding her passion for fashion and design. Choi then apprenticed under her uncle while studying at Central Saint Martins. Now she goes into the office every day and sits at her (very long) desk, pinning up inspiration and illustrations to the walls of her office.
In case you missed it: The ultimate guide to buying the perfect pair of leather boots: A stylist and a shoemaker share top fashion and maintenance tips
She may in many ways be an artist, but Choi’s practicality is always at the fore. Her early understanding of savoir faire, and of what makes a perfect shoe informs her design approach. “Everything is an object; you make something that needs to stand the pressure and the balance of engineering,” she says, “Whether it’s a piece of clothing, a piece of jewellery, shoes or bags, I think functionality very much has to come hand in hand with it. Historically speaking, most people suffer from fashion. But now I think there’s going to be a question of why do we need to suffer when we can actually design and look at things from a new perspective?”
It’s possible this common sense is genetic; the brand’s founder needed plenty of it when he started out. “During the Nineties, the UK was not a natural place to find raw materials; Italy was a lot easier because you had factories dotted around everywhere,” Choi remembers. “So it was very resourceful of Uncle Jimmy to have been able to make handmade shoes for the clients. That is something that I always refer to—there’s never ‘no’ for an answer. I’m always determined to find the solution for any design conundrum and anything that we’re stuck on.”
Choi was named the sole creative director in 2013 and has seen the now Capri Holdings-owned brand go from first making a splash when it made shoes for Princess Diana, to its heels becoming a character in their own right on TV series Sex and The City (every fan remembers Carrie Bradshaw famously losing her Choo in the Season 3 premiere), to becoming the go-to shoe for celebrities such as actors Michelle Yeoh, Cate Blanchett and Gong Li, on and off the red carpet.
Also read: Pharrell Williams on the Louis Vuitton men’s show in Hong Kong and preserving Virgil Abloh’s legacy
