From being fired at her job at 27 to building an $800 million luxury brand: The Tamara Mellon Story

In 2011, Jimmy Choo was sold to Labelux for £525.5 million, roughly $800 million at the time. At 27, Tamara Mellon was at a difficult point in her career. In 1995, she had lost her job at British Vogue, had gone through rehabilitation for drug use and was living in her parents' basement. A few years later, she would be at the centre of one of the biggest luxury footwear businesses of its time. Mellon went on to co-found Jimmy Choo with London-based shoemaker Jimmy Choo in 1996. The company, which began with a £150,000 investment from her father, grew from a small London operation into an international luxury label. As per the official website of Vogue, in 2011, Jimmy Choo was sold to Labelux for £525.5 million, roughly $800 million at the time. But the business began much more modestly.The shoemaker she knew from VogueJimmy Choo and Tamara.Mellon had worked as an accessories editor at British Vogue. During those years, she regularly visited Jimmy Choo's workshop in London's East End to have shoes made for fashion shoots. In a 2011 interview with British Vogue, she recalled how she used Choo's work for fashion shoots, saying: "I used to go down and I used to get Jimmy to make things...