Finding Beauty in the Raw Material
Crafting the CRUDA Cecilia shoe
CRUDA’s shoes (and now handbags) are crafted quite literally with intention, sourced almost entirely from repurposed materials. “Everything I do is guided by a desire to transform what already exists, to give life to something previously disgraced, to decontextualize what for some was ‘garbage’,” shares the designer.
Pamela in her workshop
And “upcycling” isn’t always a sexy word, but for Pamela, it’s a thing of beauty; in her pieces, raw and rough material is given new life. Old leather, wood from demolished buildings, and thrown away furniture are transformed by hand into towering platform boots or slingback heels adorned with oversized bows.
The CRUDA Carmen Boot
“Cruda” begins to mean something particular upon the recounting of Pamela’s story. Not raw as in “unfinished”, or raw as in “rough”, but raw as in “pure”: a lack of cover or divide between process and final form. Process is the uniting theme throughout the designer’s work, which originally began with a career as an artist. “I had a real crisis when I turned 30,” she confesses. Having finished a residency with the ministry of foreign affairs of Mexico, she returned to Costa Rica — “and things went from being ideal to being less than ideal.”
“I found myself with no home, no money, without direction and with the realization that my work as an artist was still very young, and there was no real prospect that it could provide the financial stability I needed. I really hit a low point … [and I made] a list of things I thought could really make me happy.”
On that list? “Making shoes.” An ambitious project for someone who, up until that point, had spent nearly the past decade making video and installation art and working for a furniture brand. “I began traveling on my time off, during weekends mostly, to Masaya, Nicaragua. There I visited many workshops and learned from masters of wood and leather about the craft of shoemaking.”
“The first shoes I made were there, and that was the beginning of CRUDA.”
Today, CRUDA is becoming a household name in Mexico City and beyond.The brand’s shoes balance self-awareness with anachronism, incorporating details that speak to the zeitgeist while dodging the pigeonhole of trend. For Pamela, process and materiality go hand-in-hand: “My processes always resemble each other: I make little models out of clay or plasticine and go from there. In a sense I don’t control the design so much: the materials themselves determine how a shoe, a bag, chair (or whatever) will turn out. I start with an idea and then confirm with the materials whether or not it’s possible.”
This sensibility allows the brand to seamlessly incorporate sustainability into pieces that feel relevant and new: the Samuel bag is crafted from airplane tire rubber, while the Montero shoe combines a sportiness reminiscent of the ubiquitous Samba with a dress shoe sole, made with recycled materials from top to bottom.
The Montero Shoe and Samuel Bag
“What inspires me is my surroundings: the people life has placed in my path, my coming and going from here to there, individuals in my immediate world who create, exhibit, move, open and close things,” shares Pamela. “I am inspired by what is close to me, what is near me because we coexist in the same space.”
Pamela and her team
Examining the playfulness of the brand’s shoes and bags, it’s easy to see how clothing might be the natural next step. While that’s not off the table, Pamela remains open to all. “In a way I want to return to some of my past practices, like my artistic practice. Also, in the last year, I have been returning to making furniture — for example with a project of chairs that I have produced, using materials like clay and canvas. I plan to continue on that path and see where it takes me. [With] CRUDA specifically, I am in the process of producing a collection of clothing… which hopefully you will see soon.”
For CRUDA, the future's open wide, but the center of it all remains the process itself. “My process remains identical. And honestly, that makes me happy. I have grown in other ways, but I remain true to my process.”
“It’s a process where there is no order, no technical or academic design planning. It has entirely to do with how things feel, and how we flow — it’s very much a product of my surroundings, the people I meet, the places I go.”
