Sandra Choi teams with Conner Ives and Alexander Fury to recast eight origin-era styles.
With its 30th anniversary on the horizon next year, Jimmy Choo releases The Archive 1997-2001, an eight-piece capsule drawn from the label’s opening chapters and curated by Creative Director Sandra Choi with designer Conner Ives and fashion writer Alexander Fury. The edit lifts original sketches and model numbers from the vault—no redesigns, no modern tweaks—offering a direct line to the brand’s formative ideas of glamour, craftsmanship and unapologetic feminity.
“We looked at three decades of work and dialled back to the first five years,” Choi says. “Those years truly represent the heart and soul of Jimmy Choo… This collection is about where we’ve come from, and what we stand for and where we continue to go. It’s a celebration, pure and simple— and Jimmy Choo can always ignite a party.”
The pieces read like shorthand for the house lexicon. Style names stick to essence: The Boot, The Thong, The Slide, The Strappy. Each claims a slice of the Jimmy Choo character—sleek lines, playful proportions and a confidence that arrives long before the wearer steps into a room.
The brand’s own story began with bespoke shoes for the jet-set (Diana, Princess of Wales among them) before launching ready-to-wear in 1996. That founding mission—shoes created by women, for women—still directs the studio and underpins this capsule. Animal prints, asymmetry, feather trims and precision straps signal the signatures Choo has refined for three decades.
At the centre sits model “72138,” feathered suede in vintage lilac, made iconic by Carrie Bradshaw’s lament, “I lost my Choo!” on Sex and the City. The television cameo propelled the label from insider favourite to pop-culture shorthand, changing the fashion conversation in the early 2000s. Its first reissue since 1998 anchors the release.
The Strappy predates that screen moment, tracing back to the debut Spring/Summer 1997 collection. A thong sandal laced with barely-there crossover straps, it frames the leg with jeweller’s precision. Next comes The Leo, an ankle-strap sandal in leopard-print grosgrain immortalised in Sex and the City’s opening sequence. From 2000, The Bow layers spotted snake-embossed leather and delicate leather bows in a collision of texture and attitude.
Pragmatic glamour slips in with The Slide, a mint-nubuck mule from 1999 whose chiselled toe still feels current, while python-print leather toughens The Boot, first shot by Raymond Meier in 2000. The Thong, sheathed in silver chain-mail, channels the turn-of-the-millennium craze for handkerchief tops. Finally, The Flower—a metallic-nappa sandal topped with a floating silk corsage—shows how Choo treats each shoe like couture for the foot.
Together, the eight designs form a concise dictionary: past innovations that remain timely today and point to tomorrow’s direction. The Archive 1997-2001 is the first chapter in the house’s anniversary celebrations, proof that Jimmy Choo’s original handwriting still speaks fluently in the present tense—party invitation included.
