Tamara Mellon quotes: on going with her gut, selling more than just high-end shoes, starting over, and more.
“We are constantly learning and refining. You’re never going to be perfect, but I think it’s what you learn from your mistakes, and how you apply that to the future, that builds the foundation of a strong business.”
“Keeping innovation and energy flowing is key.”
“Find authentic opportunities to innovate using data. Figure out where there are opportunities beyond just great product and a great brand.”
“I think there’s always plenty of room for everybody.”
“My motto is: feel the fear and do it anyway. If you fail, you get up and you keep trying again.”
“It’s amazing how much resilience you can have when you’re passionate about a project that you’re doing.”
“Be very careful who your partners are. Make sure you have a team that understands your vision and believes in it. You need resilience and perseverance and you need not to give up. I could have easily given up when I put the company through a reorganization.”
“Never give up control, it’s all about 51 percent.”
“People who are over-educated become risk-averse.”
“My business savvy… it’s instinct. Everything I do is just really my intuition, and every time I go against my intuition, it’s a mistake. Even though I may sit down and analyze and intellectualize something on paper, if I go against my gut feeling, it’s wrong.”
“Listen to your heart. Learning to listen to my heart has had amazing results, and this is one of the reasons my company is so important to me: it symbolizes the importance of trusting myself, knowing what I want, and owning that.”
“Speak up! This is the most important lesson for women, and one that took me a while to learn myself.”
“Direct to consumer really gives you control of your business completely.”
“The biggest challenge is brand awareness, getting eyeballs on your brand and getting the word out there.”
“There’s a new way to communicate. Technology makes it so you can be anywhere.”
“My father was the rock of my life. He taught me so many things but most importantly, he always taught me to think outside the box. He always encouraged me to do my own thing.”
“I like people who inspire me.”
“I’m always impressed by confidence, kindness and a sense of humor.”
“You never know. Down the road you can do a lot of product categories. But I think you really have to build your core first and for people to know you and respect you for that.”
“I always say that happy people are productive people. Running a company by fear is not productive in the end.
“The past always informs the present, and I choose to live in the now.”
“The best ideas come when you have space. All my best ideas come at those times.”
“Its important for women to work. They need to keep their independence, to keep earning and be challenged.”
“I hope women’s voices continue to be heard. There’s definitely going to be a shift in culture, in work environments, and I want to support that with my business.”
“I believe in equality and empowerment for women and I do what I can to share my knowledge. I’m a female dominated company. I try to work with women, and promote them in business, even when I outsource.”
“What would I tell my daughter about a professional world she may choose to enter soon? I think she’s learned so much along the way. I’ve been a feminist for a long time now, and she’s grown up with that. So I think she absorbed it by osmosis, and I’m excited for the future because she’s going to be able to speak up for herself in a way that I didn’t have the courage to when I was young and starting out. The way she interacts with people is very different.”
“I was 27 when I started Jimmy Choo, so it probably took until my mid-30s to really get to the point where I was confident enough to speak up. Also, I think I’ve gotten more rebellious as I’ve got older.”
“I always knew I wanted to make my own way; I never wanted to be dependent on my father.”
“I always said I was determined to own a truly global brand. I didn’t buy Jimmy Choo just to have a couple of shoe shops in London, did I?”
“I started this company to start a revolution. I know that sounds a bit heavy-handed, but I truly believe it. More than create beautiful shoes, I wanted to create a platform to speak out on the issues women care about, and to create a community of women that support one another.”
“My favorite part is coming to the office each day and getting to collaborate with women in all different aspects of their lives and careers. We all have something different to learn from one another. I also love reading comments and feedback from our followers and customers, negative or positive, to better offer exactly what women want. I read every single one!”
“In the past there were two things that motivated me then: independence, and passion about what I was doing. And those are still the things that motivate me now. I still have that passion for creating a product. And I will never be dependent on a man. I will never be dependent on a husband or a boyfriend or a father. That’s one thing that’s really important to me.”
“My father was someone that was incredibly entrepreneurial, and that’s what I grew up with. So it’s no surprise that I did that.”
“I can’t imagine not having my own life.”
“When someone asks about a career, I say start at the bottom. If you want to start a business, you have to know it from the ground up.”
“The reality is that I spent years in the factories in Italy when I first set up Jimmy Choo. Today, everyone who has a job at Jimmy Choo, I’ve done their job—right down to the cleaner. My motivation to do all that back then was independence.”
“I had to put the company through a reorg, raise a new round of financing, and sort of press the restart button. But my feeling was that I wasn’t going to be bullied. I wasn’t going to let them take me down. I had to pull myself together and move forward.”
“New rules. New luxury. I cofounded Jimmy Choo in 1996 and 20 years later, I’m still obsessed with shoes but not the traditional way of doing things. So I’m starting over. This is my reboot (pun intended). I’m redefining luxury and doing what I do best: designing shoes and breaking rules.”
“It’s incredibly challenging to start from zero and get everything right.”
“Starting over never looked so good.”
“If a woman gets tough in negotiations, she’s difficult, whereas a man would be considered a brilliant businessman.”
“There have been moments in my career when I’ve had to be tough and I’ve had to step up to the plate, but usually that’s because a man has underestimated me. But other than that, I wouldn’t say I’m a tough person.”
“I would say I’m compassionate, ambitious, entrepreneurial, tenacious, and passionate.”
“I’m really hoping just to keep building on what we’re doing. You have to build your core business first which is really important.”
“We really think that people want to buy from a brand that they have shared values with.”
“I don’t really care about gossip. I care about building great businesses.”
“I don’t really understand what the public perception of me is. I think public perception and reality are two wholly different things.”
“The truth is that we all have lives that are complicated. We all get hurt by people we love sometimes. It’s laughable to believe that anyone is immune. The important thing is how you behave.”
“The most important lesson life has taught me is try not to control the outcome.”
“I’m very, very happy. It’s my name now.”
“I know the best is yet to come.”
“I have a whole new set of challenges ahead of me. And I find that invigorating.”
“My daughter is my passion and my life.”
“I’d have to say the epitome of happiness, to me, is love. When I see my daughter, and I see the love in her eyes, it brings me such joy.”
“Life: you have to laugh about it.”
