Jimmy Choo

Now that she's beaten Serena Williams in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, 19-year-old American tennis player Sloane Stephens is planning to switch out her tennis shoes for a pair of Jimmy Choos. She says she will spend a portion of the $526,793 she won for reaching the semifinals on a pair of the coveted shoes -- but she's banking most of the rest of it. [Wall Street Journal] Stephens went on to lose to top-seeded and defending champ Victoria Azarenka in the semifinals on Thursday, by the way. [ESPN]

Thanks to the fashion world's enthusiastic embrace of surf/skate culture over the decades, the Vans-style slip-on sneaker - a simple, unadorned, lace-free upper attached to a rubber sole - has become an instantly recognizable Southern California silhouette and an uncluttered canvas for self-expression, not only for Vans, but also for countless other brands. In recent seasons, luxe versions of the humble skate shoe have been rolling out to retail and serving as less-formal, summertime iterations of the ever-popular smoking shoe.

Tamara Mellon, the savvy entrepreneur who took Jimmy Choo shoes from a dodgy London neighborhood to the world's trendiest retail districts, has battled drug problems, a failed marriage and scandal-hungry reporters. Now she's taking on her mother. Mellon filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court last month that accuses her mother, Ann Yeardye of Beverly Hills, of improperly receiving about $8 million in proceeds from the sale of London-based Jimmy Choo in 2004.

They are a distant relative of the sandals originally worn by the ancient Greeks and Romans. At the spring-summer 2013 fashion collections, designers such as Tom Ford, Alexander Wang and Joseph Altuzarra featured innovative knee-high-and-above versions on the runways, taking shoe envy to new heights. They are arrestingly sexy. And for many, they summon up a blow-the-wheels-off-your-chariot feeling of female empowerment. Some ladies might even take on a gladiator mentality if it came down to a fellow shopper reaching for the single pair left in her size.

Jimmy Choo took the town by storm last week, hosting not one but two parties. Not Jimmy Choo the man (the shoemaker sold his name in 2001), but Jimmy Choo the British footwear brand and its glamorous president and founder, Tamara Mellon. No stranger to Los Angeles, Mellon lived in Beverly Hills from ages 8 to 14, attending Marymount High School (Camp Beverly Hills was a favorite hangout), before settling in London. She was also one of the first to recognize the power of the red carpet, setting up the brand's first Academy Awards showroom for celebrities and stylists in 1999.

Thanks to the fashion world's enthusiastic embrace of surf/skate culture over the decades, the Vans-style slip-on sneaker - a simple, unadorned, lace-free upper attached to a rubber sole - has become an instantly recognizable Southern California silhouette and an uncluttered canvas for self-expression, not only for Vans, but also for countless other brands. In recent seasons, luxe versions of the humble skate shoe have been rolling out to retail and serving as less-formal, summertime iterations of the ever-popular smoking shoe.

In his response to the Howard Rosenberg article on "Sex and the City," Lee M. Jockers (Letters, Jan. 12) bashes the four female stars, asserting that "men of quality and substance would have no interest in these foulmouthed, aging bimbos and their $300 shoes." Jockers is simply wrong. I have been assured by my wife, who is an expert on the cost of fashion, that the Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo shoes featured on "Sex and the City" start at $500, and many styles of these shoes cost more than $800.

Women salivate over Manolo Blahnik heels. Men covet Nike Air Yeezy 2 sneakers. The limited edition shoe, designed by rapper Kanye West, has already attracted long lines and frenzied online bidding in the thousands of dollars. That's kind of impressive, considering the shoe goes on sale Saturday at a retail price of $245. Only about 3,000 to 5,000 pairs will be released, and sneaker collectors -- known as "sneakerheads" -- are anxiously awaiting the chance to add the shoes to their closet or resell them for a plump profit.

Fashion is stepping back a decade this spring, away from fall's 1980s-style acid-washed denim and power shoulders to a season full of 1970s influences, including sun-bleached colors, fringed accessories and the "it" shoe made popular on the Chanel runway: clogs. We're not talking orange rubber Crocs a la Mario Batali. These clogs are sexy and embellished, some with heels as high as those on your favorite stilettos. At Chanel's spring 2010 show last fall, models flaunted their spindly legs in short tweed skirts and 4-inch platform clogs.

Romance packages at spectacular seaside resorts? Those are so 2007. This Valentine's Day, truly groovy couples will nibble chocolate-dipped strawberries, sip Champagne and gaze into each other's eyes not in a deluxe suite on the Gold Coast but in a shoe store. And not just any shoe store: Footcandy in Brentwood is the only place in town to find the big three --Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin--under one roof. What could be more romantic than that? For $350, the 11/2-year-old boutique is offering a "Romance Your 'Sole' Mate" package that gives lucky couples the run of the shop for an hour, a 15% discount on all the shoes they snatch up ($770 jeweled D'Orsay pumps by Choo--grab 'em!

Now that she's beaten Serena Williams in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, 19-year-old American tennis player Sloane Stephens is planning to switch out her tennis shoes for a pair of Jimmy Choos. She says she will spend a portion of the $526,793 she won for reaching the semifinals on a pair of the coveted shoes -- but she's banking most of the rest of it. [Wall Street Journal] Stephens went on to lose to top-seeded and defending champ Victoria Azarenka in the semifinals on Thursday, by the way. [ESPN]

Cosmetic brand Make Up For Ever is hitting the road in a giant mobile Make Up School to give women a makeup bag remix. The brand's team of professional artists will take a peek inside your makeup bag and tell you how to better use your own products, and which ones are ready to be tossed, regardless of the brand. Consumers can book 30-minute appointments online for one-on-one makeup bag evaluations inside the Make Up School. All you have to do is "like" the brand's Facebook page.

Women salivate over Manolo Blahnik heels. Men covet Nike Air Yeezy 2 sneakers. The limited-edition shoe, designed by rapper Kanye West, has already attracted long lines and frenzied online bidding for thousands of dollars. That's kind of impressive, considering the shoe goes on sale Saturday at a retail price of $245. Only about 3,000 to 5,000 pairs will be released, and sneaker collectors — known as "sneakerheads" — are anxiously awaiting the chance to add the shoes to their closets or resell them for a plump profit.

Women salivate over Manolo Blahnik heels. Men covet Nike Air Yeezy 2 sneakers. The limited edition shoe, designed by rapper Kanye West, has already attracted long lines and frenzied online bidding in the thousands of dollars. That's kind of impressive, considering the shoe goes on sale Saturday at a retail price of $245. Only about 3,000 to 5,000 pairs will be released, and sneaker collectors -- known as "sneakerheads" -- are anxiously awaiting the chance to add the shoes to their closet or resell them for a plump profit.

Louboutin red isn't just for the soles of sky-high stillettos anymore. Shoe designer Christian Louboutin is branching out into beauty. His luxury French company is pairing with Batallure Beauty, which helps develop brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Macy's, Marchesa and Sephora, to launch the Christian Louboutin Beaute line in late 2013. Sephora, a cosmetics and fragrance retailer, happens to stock perfumes from another well-known shoe titan: Jimmy Choo. Louboutin, who founded his company in Paris in 1991, has never ventured into cosmetics before.

Cold, wind and hours of boredom didn't deter shoppers on the hunt for affordable designer duds, as throngs lined up to buy into another brief fling between high-end fashion and low-end retail. On Thursday, a match-up between Italian fashion label Marni and cheap-chic retailer H&M drew hundreds of bargain seekers to select H&M stores. At the Beverly Center, about 250 shoppers had gathered outside the store by 7:30 a.m., many sipping coffee and wearing thick coats, knit caps and colorful wristbands stamped with the time slot they had been allotted to shop the collection.

Life really can't get much better than this for a shoemaker: a company that has grown from scratch to $50 million in four years, a luxury brand favored by movie stars, and a waiting list as long as a pair of pony-skin boots to buy $450 to $3,000 shoes at boutiques from London to Los Angeles. The name is Jimmy Choo, but in fact, the ready-to-wear shoes are designed by Choo's niece, Sandra Choi, with the help of company president Tamara Yeardye--two shoemakers with the world at their feet.

Cosmetic brand Make Up For Ever is hitting the road in a giant mobile Make Up School to give women a makeup bag remix. The brand's team of professional artists will take a peek inside your makeup bag and tell you how to better use your own products, and which ones are ready to be tossed, regardless of the brand. Consumers can book 30-minute appointments online for one-on-one makeup bag evaluations inside the Make Up School. All you have to do is "like" the brand's Facebook page.

If the production values of the recent Milan menswear shows are any indication ? an indoor rainstorm at Burberry, John Varvatos' railroad track runway and Ermenegildo Zegna's green-screen "Live-D" presentation ? luxury brands are done hedging their bets and tightening their belts. They are back to selling the sizzle they hope will sell their steak to men who've been on a bread and water diet for the last several seasons. Below are a few of the highlights from the opening act of the 2011 fashion show circuit.

The showing of the major men's fall-winter 2011-12 European collections, which this season run Jan. 15 to 18 in Milan and Jan. 19 to 23 in Paris, are the traditional opening salvo in a seemingly endless globe-spanning fashion marathon that doesn't wind down until the Halloween decorations go up. And, because of their pole position on the catwalk calendar, the men's shows often end up being more than the sum of their parts. They offer an opportunity to get an early bead on where menswear and women's wear designers ?