Back in 1986 shoemaker Jimmy Choo opened his first shop in the east London suburb of Hackney. It was modest, and attached to the workshop in which Choo made bespoke shoes for individual customers.
As is now well known, one of Choo’s most famous customers was Diana, Princess of Wales.
Diana was a Choo customer from the 1980s right up until her death in 1997. And, while much has been said about that alliance, a secret about Diana’s visits has only just been revealed.
It explains how Diana avoided getting parking tickets when she visited the Choo salon.
The story was told by the now creative director of the Jimmy Choo label, Sandra Choi. Back in those days, Choi was Jimmy Choo’s apprentice (Choi is Choo’s niece, the child of his wife’s sister).
In October 2020, Sandra Choi participated in an online interview with Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s Editor in Chief Olivia Phillips and spilled the new secret.
In the interview Sandra Choi shared how Princess Diana would dodge traffic wardens when visiting Jimmy Choo at his shop.
Asked for her overriding memory of Diana, Sandra Choi said: “She hated traffic wardens! It is just that she would always park her car on the yellow line outside the shop.”
“And someone would stand by the door… trying to look out for traffic wardens while she popped into the shop to do her thing,” Choi continued. “And even herself [she would be] in and out, making sure that the traffic wardens wouldn’t give her a ticket,” she said.
“It was quite funny!”
All this proves is that the Princess Diana / Jimmy Choo story is one that just keeps giving.
Jimmy Choo himself now designs his own couture shoe collections and is no longer associated with the brand that bears his name. Yet he continues to understand the enduring appeal of Diana and of celebrity endorsements generally.
“If you look at how the late Princess Diana passed away so many years ago, but every time it’s her birthday, [everyone’s] still talking about her,” he told RTE in 2021.
You can see the whole interview with Sandra Choi in the video below.