Tamara Mellon, and life after Jimmy Choo

Tamara Mellon has resigned from Jimmy Choo , the label she built from a Hackney cobbler into a label worth £500 million that became a byword for glamour. The business angle to this story is well documented elsewhere . What I'm more interested in is what Tamara will do next. Full disclosure: I totally heart Tamara. My girlcrush on her dates from the very first pair of Jimmy Choos I bought, in the days when there was just one tiny store, in Motcomb Street in London. Tamara was in the store when I went in, and helped me choose them. As a saleswoman, she was as charming and persuasive as they come – which probably goes some way to explaining how she became a retail tycoon. Mellon is a Jackie Collins heroine come to life. By her early thirties Mellon had been in rehab, had a fairytale wedding, a baby daughter and a messy divorce. But through all this, she never lost her business head and managed to build Jimmy Choo into a major brand. Oh, and she carries the record for the best outfit ever worn by a kick-ass business woman collecting an OBE at Buckingham Palace: polka-dot Dolce & Gabbana, with a fur collar and a fedora. How can you not love a woman like that? The industry rumour is that Tamara is to launch her own brand. I hope so: I can see her as a female Tom Ford. (After all, like Ford, she already stars in a state of semi-undress in her own perfume ads .) Jimmy Choo successfully diversified from shoes into bags, sunglasses and scent; will fashion or makeup be next? On the fashion desk, we're hoping for a Tamara Mellon Hotel. In uptown Manhattan, with a fabulous cocktail bar and a lot of zebra print. My first pair of Jimmy Choos were black suede sandals with a mother-of-pearl heel. They are ultra feminine, glamorous and look rather delicate, but they are still going strong fifteen years later. Not unlike the woman herself.