“Can a founder-led DTC luxury footwear brand use accessible pricing and embedded consumer financing to capture the modern luxury market without traditional retail mark-ups?”
Founded in 2016 as a direct-to-consumer luxury footwear brand by Jimmy Choo co-founder Tamara Mellon, the company disrupted traditional luxury retail by selling handcrafted Italian shoes at below-market prices via a DTC model. After rapid 130%+ sales growth in 2018, it raised $50M Series C in 2019 to fund retail and manufacturing expansion. The embedded finance angle is consumer-facing: BNPL via Affirm at checkout to reduce purchase friction on $400–$800 price-point shoes, and BILL for back-office AP automation linked to QuickBooks.
Tamara Mellon integrates with QuickBooks.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 3 layers in Tamara Mellon's stack: Lending (Buy Now Pay Later (0% APR installment financing)); Accounting (QuickBooks); Spend / AP (BILL).
Tamara Mellon was founded by Tamara Mellon and Jill Layfield and is founded in 2016, headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Tamara Mellon has raised ~$90M in total (latest round: Series C, 2019).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Tamara Mellon and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.