Sandra Choi puts her Jimmy Choo foot down

Four-inch heels are kickin' (if not flyin' across the boardroom) over at Jimmy Choo. The shoe company famous for its stifled in-fighting is making good on its rep.

At the center of the dolled-up drama is Choo's polished head designer, Sandra Choi (niece of the original Jimmy Choo, who ducked out of the company in 1996). Except, well, you might not know of Sandra's efforts at all, given corporate chief Tamara Mellon claims that it is she who's the the chief designer — and entirely responsible for the collections Choo spits out.

Sure, Tamara.

Sandra, we learn, has been mildly okay with this arrangement. She sticks to the creative realm while Tamara reaps in the Bungalow 8 sightings. Crucial to this arrangement as well is co-chief Robert Bensoussan, who handles the business end of things.

But since Sandra's contract expired in December of 2005, she's wised up: She knows she's talented and is keen to the fact that she's worth a shitload more than she's being paid. What to do? Threaten to quit if her compensation doesn't start reflecting her role in the company. And by "role" we mean "holding the entire company together."

And that, folks, would mean disaster for Jimmy Choo.

From inside the derailing Choo Choo train, we learn:

Sandra feels that she has contributed to the success of Jimmy Choo and had her own attorney negotiating a new contract. Robert Bensoussan doesn't want to pay her.

There is truly no one who can take on the design of the shoes if Sandra leaves and she is using this for her negotiating basis.

And that's only the catfight portion of this whole arrangement.

What's really at stake are the feelings of majority investor Lion Capital (nee Hicks Muse) — the latest in a long list of owners, which included former Vogue accessories editor Mellon herself, as well as a Phoenix Equity Partners, a division of Equinox Luxury Holdings. In November 2004, Lion Capital extended £101 million to acquire the shoe designer. And yet somehow, after all that money was wired over, they weren't exactly aware of the whole situation.

Also, all of the investors in Lion Capital can not know that a company was bought when one of the main assets contracts where up in December.

Needless to say, this could create a problem for Bensoussan, the business brained half of the CEO duo, who may be searching for investors to keep the head of that little company four inches above water.

The bad blood between Sandra and media hog Mellon isn't helping to diffuse the Choi/Choo stand-off. Our insider spills on Mellon's incessant insistence that Choi receive very little media attention:

There is minimal press on Sandra. This is because Tamara has said that Sandra is not allowed to have press. All press is to go to Tamara.

The fact that we can't find pictures of Choi anywhere? Yeah, that might be evidence of such.

We've learned that both parties are knee-high in the negotiations process, and while Choi is certainly enjoying some of the comfort of her current kicks – such as hanging the fact she is chief boss but knows she is worth more than she's being paid for – she's putting her sateen swathed foot down.

"Jimmy Choo knows they can't afford to loose her," claims our insider. Unfortunately, it seems as though they may not be able to afford to keep her either ... what with all that money being poured into Nicole Richie's endorsement deal.