A Chinese EV Just Got Jimmy Choo's Signature Crystals — and Diana's Blue Satin

Jimmy Choo didn't just lend his name to a car. He designed one.

Chinese EV brand 智己 (IM Motors) has unveiled the L6 Prof. Jimmy Choo High-End Limited Edition, and it marks the first time the legendary shoemaker — Prof. Jimmy Choo OBE, 周仰杰 — has ever been involved in the full design of a production Chinese EV. Not a sticker, not a badge, not a branded seat cover: the 76-year-old designer reportedly worked across the paint, the materials, and the interior details over a career spanning six decades.

The result leans hard into the couture language Choo is famous for. Outside, a crystal "Star Brilliance" glass package runs from the hood emblem to the fender trim and the center console buttons, all set against a bespoke cream-silver "Rice Silver" body color with Choo's hand-signed badge at the rear. Inside, the reference point is specific: the blue silk satin shoe Diana, Princess of Wales wore in 1997. That's the inspiration for a pearl-feel leather interior in high-end blue, finished with shell-inlay panels, fashion-grade three-dimensional embroidery, and custom wool floor mats.

That specificity is the interesting part. In a 200,000-yuan EV segment (roughly the US$28,000–30,000 range) where brands battle over battery density, range figures, and 0–100 times, 智己 is competing on embroidery and the ancestry of a fabric swatch.

The play is less about the car than about the buyer. First batch is capped at 1,000 units, split across 76kWh and 93kWh versions priced at 234,900 and 249,900 yuan respectively — with buyers receiving a high-end pair of shoes as part of the perks. The deliberate message: this is not a mass-market product, it's an object you'd want sitting next to the rest of your wardrobe.

It's a familiar move in luxury, but a relatively fresh one in Chinese EVs. Brands like NIO and Zeekr have flirted with designer collaborations, yet few have handed over the whole vehicle this literally — down to the wool underfoot. 智己 is betting that "beautiful" can function as a spec sheet all its own, and that a generation raised on limited drops and collab culture will pay a premium for a car that feels less like hardware and more like an accessory.

Whether a sedate, classicist Choo aesthetic lands with younger Chinese buyers used to flashier, tech-forward interiors is the open question. But for exactly 1,000 people, the answer apparently doesn't matter. They're already choosing their shoes.