Jimmy Choo doesn't get much more

The Towering World of Jimmy Choo

A Story of Power, Profits and the Pursuit of the Perfect Shoe
by Lauren Goldstein Crowe and Sagra Maceira de Rosen
In the centre of this book there's a slim portfolio of happy snaps - unhappy snaps actually, given that the families in them became estranged, the couples divorced, and the business partnerships sundered in acrimony. The pictures are cropped at the knee, the glam people left footless. Only once is a shoe properly visible. It's the true subject of a portrait of its maker, Jimmy Choo Yeang Keat. He's a severe man seated at his bench, the glue smell of his workshop almost wafting off the page as he lifts a strappy number in his flexible craftsman's hands. One finger lightly supports its pointed toe. This is the shoe as made object; look hard at it, because elsewhere in this book, the shoe as shoe is paid scant attention. Choo doesn't get much more.