Бывший дизайнер Yeezy Лусетт Холланд запустила в Сенегале бренд обуви из переработанных материалов

When veteran footwear designer Lucette Holland visited Dakar, Senegal, with a friend after the COVID-19 pandemic, she arrived open-minded about what the city might offer in terms of shoemaking opportunities, but with no specific goal set in stone. Then she saw the massive secondhand markets of the major port city and was inspired to create footwear using recycled materials. Holland has worked for some of the biggest brands in fashion over the course of 20-plus years in the business, including Balenciaga, Celine, Burberry and Calvin Klein, and helmed Yeezy in partnership with Adidas for eight years before their split. Now she wants to challenge mainstream Western shoemaking with her artisanal footwear brand Ceecee. The Paris-based design house, part of Holland’s B Corp certified studio PAMS Global, drops “pilot” collections which the brand describes as “focused studies that explore materials, processes and systems outside of conventional industrial fashion cycles.” You May Also Like With initial collections made in Dakar, in collaboration with local shoemakers and producers in an atelier, the footwear is crafted with deadstock components, reclaimed textiles and locally sourced materials. The monthly small batch collections feature styles ranging from colorful wedges and thong sandals to slim sneakers — and recycled bike tires are a key component. “Ceecee is a trial and an exploration of how far we can push the boundaries of what is more common in specifically footwear practice in terms of fabrication and supply chain,” Holland told FN. “And seeing how far we can get to in a more uncompromised and less traditional — actually very traditional — but in a different, way less industrial way of making things, and still deliver a product that feels on par with industry standards.” The journey toward Ceecee began with creating a long bucket list of issues in the industry, with specific knowledge of the “resource-heavy” footwear realm, and pondering how other cultures and communities approach things differently — and how their methods could be applied. The secondhand markets in Dakar are filled with products from places like Goodwill in Western areas; vendors also sell deadstock materials from Italy and Asia, including all the components needed to make shoes. The city has a well-established foundation for producing footwear, Holland emphasized. “They already have a huge shoemaking history and tradition in that country. There’s an enormous resource of artisans, of leathers, of components.” The process of making shoes out of materials from the markets “really gelled” and eventually Holland was introduced to a mutual with a footwear brand, with whom she started making prototypes three years ago — at the time it was a smaller parallel project to Holland’s primary endeavor working on a natural dye lab in Los Angeles. But then Ceecee “took on a life of its own.” The shoes caught attention at a 2024 exhibition in Dakar, and the brand organically grew, with the team developing a “soft business model based on the B Corp business model.” Now the atelier has two full-time shoemakers, a shoe design assistant and a shoe project manager. Working with the materials available in Dakar is “a real pivoting exercise,” and Holland finds that the design approach is the exact opposite to a traditional design house. Rather than working in service of a concept and finding the materials that suit it, Ceecee shoes are crafted with the materials leading the way — and if there isn’t a certain color or resource available, it’s time to shift gears. With everything being handmade and produced using little to no machinery, Holland can really recognize the touch of the shoemakers involved — there’s Ndiasse Seye, who has a way with strappy sandals, and Samba, whose specialty is sneakers. Each small batch, in fact, is reflective of the people who were involved in making it, from picking out the colors in the market to putting the shoe together. The team isn’t trying to follow trends — their production process is too slow for that — but Holland said they are going for “functional archetypes” with low heels, wedges, flip-flops and sneakers in the mix. In the future, Ceecee might experiment more with wholesale business, expand the custom order side of the brand and potentially work in another country or another group of artisans with different specialities — perhaps making other types of shoes or even bags. While acknowledging the complexities of the environmental impact of the fashion industry and that “the bigger change has to come from a much higher up source and with bigger consequences,” Holland believes that going smaller is one of the ways to make a difference. “Small individual people, small individual companies, trying to make a change is amazing, and it’s necessary because it’s also inspiring, and hopefully inspires the next generation.”