Jimmy Choo on fashion’s future, warns on AI

From British royalty to Hollywood stars, Jimmy Choo’s luxury shoes have been worn by countless celebrities on red carpets around the world.

Now Choo is helping the next generation of fashion designers to follow in his footsteps, with the opening of an online store selling clothes and accessories made by students and graduates of his design program the JCA London Fashion Academy.

“My father always said to me, if you have the knowledge and the skills, if you pass on your legacy, then the younger generation [can have] all the skills and knowledge as well,” he told CNBC. Choo was born in Malaysia, where his father taught him how to make shoes by hand.

Choo opened the academy in 2021, offering students a bachelor’s or master’s degree in entrepreneurship in design and brand innovation — with business a key part of the program.

“It’s very important … to [help] them start a business, to see how to sell,” Choo told CNBC.

Students learn about marketing and PR and write business plans with the aim of starting their own “micro” fashion enterprise after graduation, according to a description on the academy’s website.

“Even the most talented of fashion designers will fail if they have no business acumen,” Choo said in a press release.

The academy also opened a temporary physical location — the JCA Retail Gallery — on the ground floor of the upscale White City Living development in west London, where the students’ collections were exhibited and on sale last week.

“The idea of launching this was to give [students] a platform to sell their work without having to pay the fees of what you would usually pay to [rent a] retail [store] and give them that opportunity to speak to the general public,” said Olivia Black, one of the academy’s graduates and co-curator of the JCA Retail Gallery. The retail space was gifted to the academy by real estate firm Berkeley Group.

Black said Choo gave feedback on her eponymous fashion label during its creation, advising her to develop the idea of her brand’s motif — an eagle. “He always says, like, focus on something that makes the garment really special,” Black said.

Sustainability is a focus for the students. Many of the clothes were produced from deadstock or second-hand fabrics, while some were made to be modular with zips or bows allowing sleeves or trouser legs to be added or removed for different occasions. Choo suggested designers could use the offcuts from the production of luxury garments to make more affordable pieces.

Last year, McKinsey predicted that generative artificial intelligence could add between $150 billion and $275 billion to the fashion and luxury sectors’ operating profits as soon as 2026. What does Choo make of AI and its effect on the fashion industry? He said AI is useful for students’ exercises, or for translating letters from Chinese, but he warned that it shouldn’t be used for everything.

“Because people can see — if you use AI, everything will come out the same,” he said. “You can use [it] as a guideline, but not 100% to take it and do everything. Otherwise, you’ve lost your skill,” Choo said.

Choo studied at London footwear college Cordwainers in the early 1980s, and made shoes for a show at London Fashion Week later that decade. Vogue magazine journalist Kate Phelan saw his designs and called him, saying “Jimmy … we want those shoes,” Choo told CNBC. The magazine ran a feature on his shoes over several pages, and Choo found a customer in Diana, Princess of Wales in the 1990s.

Choo sold his 50% stake in the eponymous shoe business when the company was valued at £21 million in 2001 and the brand is now owned by Capri Holdings, which bought it in a $1.35 billion deal in 2017.

CNBC