Jimmy Choo

Shoes, apparently, are a safer investment these days than stocks. So said Jimmy Choo chief executive Josh Shulman last week, surveying the rows of stacked and spindly heels arrayed before him in the brand’s Milan showroom. He was attempting to explain why the New York and Los Angeles stores had reported better-than-ever sales at the same time Congress and the Federal Reserve decided Wall Street needed a rescue package. Certainly the towering sandals of the Choo “Catwalk collection” – the trend-driven line produced to correspond with the women’s wear shows – looked like mini-treasure chests in their own right, leather and skins bedecked with glimmering rows of silver beads or twinkling shells. They were the footwear equivalent of little jewels.

And, as it turned out, as of next spring/summer, they will come with their own jewels – or rather the Saba bag will: a geometric snakeskin bangle in bright red, yellow or green that originally hung on the side of the shoulder strap but that was being “reconceived” so often by customers, and moved from the bag’s arm to their own, that the Choosies sensed an opportunity to diversify.