At Crep, we’re all about celebrating the women shaping sneaker culture, not just wearing the heat but creating it too.
Image of Helen Kirkum photographed by Francis Augusto
This year, we’re spotlighting Helen Kirkum, a pioneer in sustainable sneaker design. Her unique reconstructions turn post-consumer waste into wearable art, proving that fresh kicks don’t have to come fresh out of the box.
To honour her craft, we sat down for a chat on sneakers, repurposing, and what International Women’s Day really means to her.
Read the Full Interview Below:
Crep: Thank you Helen for taking time out of your day to speak with us here at Crep, we want to start off the interview by asking you how you have been. How’s 2025 treating you so far?
Helen Kirkum: I’m alright, thank you for having me. Yeah I am good, it’s a lovely sunny day in the studio which is always amazing. Yeah 2025 is good so far, I feel like for me especially being in the sustainability space, there’s a lot of progress and movement towards responsibility within the industry and that always makes me happy.
Crep: For people who are not familiar with yourself and your work, could you tell us a little bit about what you do?
HK: Yeah, so I have my own studio called Helen Kirkum Studio and we essentially work with post-consumer waste sneakers. So it is all shoes that have been thrown away but can’t be resold in charity shops, we use those as our raw materials to make new products. We make sneakers, bags and other accessories from waste sneaker materials.
'Bespoke Banana' photographed by Bernhard Deckert
Crep: When was the first time you thought that Helen Kirkum Studios was that initial million-pound idea?
HK: I don’t think it is the million-pound idea.
BOTH: Hahaha
HK: For me, it started when I did a Master's Degree in Footwear Design at the Royal College of Art in London. When I was there I was kind of thinking about sneakers a lot, looking at how they were made and I actually went on a trip to one of the recycling banks in London and that’s when I saw quite a lot of waste sneakers specifically, and for me, that really sparked an idea and I thought this is a raw material that actually holds a lot of value.
"Sneakers hold so much cultural significance, we are also very personally connected to our sneakers, how we wear them, and how we use them."
I sort of realised, that even when they are completely battered and your ‘beaters’ are at the end of their life, they still are something you feel connected to and you don’t want to part with them. I was really interested in the value of products and looking at the discarded ones and seeing how we can still make use of their value.
Crep: Similar to us a Crep, we don’t want any sneakers to be wasted. We believe in cleaning them and reconstructing them into something new so they can have a longer life span. How did you develop your own unique approach to sneaker upcycling?
HK: There’s quite a lot of steps, but essentially we collect these old shoes from the recycling centre, we clean them then we break them down into their component pieces. Then we use the component pieces as our raw material. So essentially, we build a kind of collage of sneakers and make that into a patchwork fabric and from this fabric we can create new products.
We try to incorporate as much of the beauty of the original sneaker product as we can but still work within a system where we can work with factories, we can scale up our production and make new pieces. It’s very cool because each of the new pieces essentially ends up being one of one because the way we collage together the material, each shoe, even the left and right, is completely unique.
Crep: How long does it take to transform, for example, an old trainer into something wearable?
HK: It sort of depends on how we do it. We have two different services that we offer. We do our ready-to-wear sneakers, so I have the signature shoe which is called Palimpsest, which you can buy on the website and is made using the process I explained. Where we make our collaged material and send the material to Portugal which is where our shoes are made, then they will make it into a sneaker, so that process is more traditional in the way that it is created.
Then we also have our bespoke sneaker service which I love, which is sort of like the lifeblood of our business. That's where I started and that’s where customers can send all our favourite sneakers, we’ll cut them up and make them into a new pair for them. I love that because we have collectors and they give us all their favourite Jordans for example or Air Max collections, whatever it is.
'Palimpsest Stone' photographed by Ryan Blackwell
They send us over their holy grails or we have customers that have a real emotional connection to their sneakers. Maybe they ran a Marathon in them or maybe it was their first basketball game or their sneakers that their kids have had growing up and we take all these shoes with all these memories and value, cut them all up, make them into a new shoe and they kind of have this one-of-one grail which is the only one to exist in the world and that process takes longer.
For this process, it takes around 8 weeks from start to finish. To ideate the design with the customer, talk about their dreams of what their bespoke sneaker could look like, design it, make it, finish it and send it back to them.
Crep: We love the sentimental side of your business, have you got a favourite pair/ project that you have worked on?
HK: It’s hard to say because everyone comes with such a unique story but for a project that I did, I made sneakers with Takashi Murakami and this was in 2018. It was a project called ‘ Sneakers for Breakfast’ for ComplexCon and made this one-of-one pair of sneakers inspired by his work and this was so fun as it was crazy bright colours, they had eyes on them, they had teeth, they had all these amazing little details and I showed those a ComplexCon and they were auctioned for charity.
I think for me, that was really interesting because it was one of the first times that my work that has this counter-culture to it was shown in this extremely hype-driven ComplexCon, which is like the home of sort of sneaker hype. To show my work there that is very routed in the longevity of products in care, in all these sustainable values, for that to have a place in ComplexCon and to be celebrated was a big turning point in my career I would say.
Crep: When people normally hear sustainability they often think it can be quite boring, drab and it doesn’t really coincide with the sneaker culture that we see that is very vibrant and offers a place to express themselves.
How do you think the sneaker industry in general can make a real lasting change in terms of incorporating sustainability in their designs?
HK: Yeah, I totally agree with you, I think that is something that I have always felt with my work. I wanted to create designs that people were first drawn to as if they're drawn to anything else, as if they would like the colour, they find it interesting or unusual and then to understand this kind of sustainability narrative behind it. I think that is the only way that we are going to create significant change, we still have to make desirable and interesting products people want to wear.
That’s always really important to me and there’s also a really playful side to my work as well which is I am not scared to cut up all your favourite brands and whack them together. So, I think that helps that sort of naivety to the industry I think which helps push that narrative forward.
Sustainability is such a massive topic that it's hard for a lot of people to understand and even when we work in the industry, we don’t understand it so you know it’s really big. I think all we can do as brands is to be as honest as we can with the processes that we are doing. Be clear on what we recycle, what we reuse and what happens to our product. Just being responsible and taking accountability for where your brand is at and doing your best to follow the steps to change it.
I feel like customers are demanding more transparency from brands, as an individual that is something we can do as well. We can vote with our feet in some ways and support brands that are doing something a little bit different I guess.
Crep: As brands, we have a corporate social responsibility to our customers to be as transparent as possible, but do you think we’ll get to a point where sustainable fashion will be seen as the forefront of fashion?
HK: I think there are different ways to approach it. What Nike were doing with their ISPA stuff was super interesting and that was definitely playful and unusual silhouettes, but then equally as designers we can do things on the backend by taking those classic sneakers that everyone knows and loves and making them as responsible as possible with the materials that we use. I think there’s a two-way approach, you need those talking points to get people feeling motivated but then you also need to improve the backend and bolster everything back up that you do.
So, I would like to think that with the work I do, I try to create a place for sustainable products to feel fun and playful and I think that it is important and something we need to see more of. I don’t know if it will ever be the most talked about trend, but I will definitely try and make it that way!
Crep: Absolutely, you’re taking the right steps to get towards that for sure! It is very important as the years pass by, sustainability is a massive word as you said we don’t understand every aspect of it, but it’s good to get the fashion world aware of those kinds of issues as well as make things as equally as fashionable.
We are going to talk more about yourself and your endeavours, how did sneaker sculptures came about and how does it differ from the work you did in Helen Kirkum studio?
HK: Yeah so Sneaker Sculptures is one of my favourite workshops, it is so fun and so accessible and easy to do. It is a workshop that I offer, we do them in the studio, and we do a lot of them with brand activations.
We also have a digital version that is accessible through the website as well, where people can download and do it straight away. Essentially what it is, is like making shoes from household recycling and waste or making shoe concepts I’d say. I mean, you could walk down the street in a sneaker sculpture made of Kellogg’s boxes but I don’t know how wearable it would be.
It’s all about changing the way we think about design, and really changing the narrative of how we think of design which I do in all aspects of my work. I remember an experience where I used to work in-house at adidas when I first graduated and the designers at adidas were amazing at drawing.
Everyone had these beautiful illustrations and I was there like ‘I can’t draw’ but I knew I could make things. I used my initiative to patch things together, sticking things on, and grappling with different materials that I have found to build concepts in a way that I could translate my ideas without having to be good at drawing. That’s what I have been doing throughout my MA as well, I realised that this was a valuable skill and now I teach a ton of people through my workshops.
Crep: Do you get a lot of younger people coming for these workshops or is it people of all ages?
HK: It’s honestly all ages! I love the variety of people that we get through the ‘Sneaker Sculptures’ workshops, it really kicked off for me during COVID-19, because in COVID-19 times, I used to do them through Instagram Live for free because everyone was stuck at home. But what everyone had was household recycling piling up. It became a really nice way that people could connect creatively without having to feel too precious about what they were making. I think that’s one of the beauties of it as well.
I teach internally in big corporate environments, where I also might teach their teams that have nothing to do with design. It might be their admin team on a design experience day. My favourite thing is when somebody at the start of the workshops says ‘mines going to be rubbish’, or ‘I can’t do it’ and by the end of it they are so proud of what they have made and I think that is the beauty of the workshop, it’s accessible to everyone.
'Bespoke Sneakers' Photographed Bernhard Deckert
Crep: Let’s steer more closely into International Women’s Day itself, what does it mean to you personally, and how do you hope to see more women empowered in creative industries?
HK: I think it’s a weird one because obviously it is important for everyone to be recognised, within their specific industries and I do feel very lucky to have the opportunity to do nice things like this. Being able to talk about your experiences but I think we have to work really hard to make sure that these kinds of awareness days do not stop on the day and that we are consistent throughout the year.
But I think specifically for me that sneaker culture is quite a male-dominated industry and I do find it important to make sure that when I show up within the industry, I can bring other people under me as well.
"I’m a big believer in that a rising tide lifts all ships and if I can help to steer the change then I am happy to do that."
Crep: For a lot of people and a lot of brands it will be a ticking-off-the-list kind of exercise and empowering women for this month when it is better to have a place where we are always empowering women and we are always pushing them to do their best and to be a part of sneaker culture as well.
Do you think in the future that will be a natural change?
HK: I hope so, I am just a firm believer whenever I am in a room to make sure that I do my bit to support other people under me. I think that all we can do is for anybody who is in a position of power to try and keep doing the same because the more diverse voices we have in any industry, the more culturally rich it is going to be, so we just have to keep going.
The more we celebrate people with different voices and opinions within any industry, the more varied and exciting it is going to be and the more innovation and change you’re going to have which adds value to the industry. It's sort of an obvious one for me anyway, I think that it is not so obvious to everyone that’s why we have to keep doing it.
Crep: Where do you see Helen Kirkum Studios in the next 5 years? Are there any exciting projects or concepts that you can share with us?
HK: I am excited for what is next to come, I must say. I think I am really feeling that as well as building out the brand and building out the products we’re doing. We’ve just recently launched accessories, more smaller pieces like the sneaker charms we just launched at Christmas which have been a massive success.
I am really looking at ways where I can help support the community that I am part of, you know some of our products are more luxury items so it’s really like building out the brand in a way that there are accessible things we can all be a part of like the workshops. There’s a big push from me this year to do more community-based workshops and create more moments where we can all be together and share our experiences.
'Bespoke' photographed by Bernhard Deckert
I think there’s something very magical about when I get people in the studio and everybody comes together and shares their ideas. There’s something about making things with your hands that helps people open up to each other I think because you’re sort of concentrating on something else so then you’re just chatting which I absolutely love. I think people always feel empowered when they can do something physical with their hands.
So more workshops for me this year, more community events and then I am working more behind the scenes with brands so I am really trying to put all my knowledge and everything I’ve learnt through this industry to use on a big scale. So yeah a little bit less front-facing and hopefully tangible change to come.
Crep: Thank you so much Helen for your time, it's been great to find out more about your sneaker artistry, are there any lasting words that you would like to share with the Crep family?
HK: Keep cleaning your shoes! No, but we do have really shared values of longevity of products and looking after and wearing the things you own. I think we really connect on that point of view because sometimes sneaker culture can feel that there’s loads of consumption but maybe the enjoyment and wearing of the sneakers can be sometimes missed. I am a big believer that the beauty of the product comes through wearing it but also looking after it. So, I think we align really well on that.
Also, if you do donate your shoes - a top tip from Helen - if you do donate your sneakers at the end of their life to a charity bank then also make sure that you tie the laces together because we work with single shoes and the reason we work with single shoes is because a lot of those shoes go through that recycling process and get separated from each other, even if you donated them with the best will in the world. So make sure you tie your laces together when you donate your shoes.
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