In the business of beautiful shoes
Tamara Mellon takes her pop-up closet on the road
Walking into Tamara Mellon’s mobile shoe pop-up is like stepping into her closet.
It’s beautifully organized and color coordinated, showcasing everything from leopard-print sneakers to stiletto boots. A shoe lover’s dream.
That’s exactly how Mellon envisioned it.
The co-founder of Jimmy Choo who sold the company in 2011 now has her own namesake shoe company, and she’s taking an innovative retail concept on the road with the launch of the mobile TM Closet.
The traveling pop-up ends its Houston visit today at River Oaks District and will head to Dallas, then San Francisco.
“We know that there is an aesthetic that women love when they walk into a shoe closet and see everything lined up and beautifully organized. We wanted to take away the pain of shoe shopping,” Mellon said while in Houston last week.
In Mellon’s TM Closet, every section is a different size. Shoppers visit the section that fits them and can try on the shoes right there. Then shoes are purchased on site and shipped to the customer.
“The culture of shopping has changed,” Mellon said. “People want new experiences, and this is fun. It creates a sense of urgency to visit and shop because we aren’t going to be there very long.”
Mellon co-founded her new company, Tamara Mellon, with Jill Layfield in 2016. Though Mellon could have easily duplicated the Jimmy Choo model, she said this new company was a chance to stand up for social causes she’s passionate about.
“I was 27 years old when I started Jimmy Choo, and I wanted to design beautiful shoes,” she said. “I had no idea of the challenges I would face doing that. You take some hard knocks along the way. This time, we wanted to talk to our customers about things we really cared about and not be afraid to talk about these things, whether that’s equal pay and gender discrimination or women’s health.”
As part of that mission, the company celebrates Equal Pay Day in March and offers free mammograms for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Mellon said traditional luxury brands don’t often take a stand on social issues for fear of alienating customers.
“We’ve decided that you either like us or you don’t like us, but we’re going to put a stake in the ground and take a stand on something,” she said. “We are building our tribe.”
Each pair of the brand is technically crafted for style and comfort. Mellon, who wears a size 7½, tests all of the shoes herself. And she claims her brand is even more comfortable than Jimmy Choo.
“I don’t want to be in pain,” she said. “I refuse to wear shoes that hurt. There are technically things you can do to the shoe to make a shoe more comfortable — but I can’t tell you because I’d be giving up our secret sauce.”
Mellon’s happiest moments are actually designing the shoes, she said.
“Fashion is cyclical,” she said. “What you may have hated two years ago you now love. What you thought was hideous now looks cool. When I worked at British Vogue in the early ’90s, we weren’t allowed to wear jeans in the office. We had to wear heels, and sneakers were for doing sports. Of course, that’s changed.”
Outside the shoe business, Mellon, who lives in Los Angeles with her 17-year-old daughter, loves collecting art and organizing in the Marie Condo tradition, which is why Mellon’s TM Closet is so impeccably designed.
“I love tidying up and cleaning,” she said. “When I lived in London, I invested in my friend’s company called Practical Princess, and I loved when she would come over and we color-coded my closet. When I go into other people’s homes who aren’t so tidy, I just want to tidy up.”