Defining your destiny - Cecelia Swartz CA(SA)

Reflection and reinvention

If it sounds like that’s just what you, as a busy woman, need in your life, that’s because Cecelia Swartz understands the corporate lifestyle extremely well. Before launching CeSwa in October last year, she spent nine years in audit and risk management; a career that she embraced because it spoke directly to her knack for proficiency. ‘I love getting things done, doing them the right way and doing them quickly,’ she says. The formula of understanding a problem, assessing solutions and executing worked for her – until it didn’t. ‘The job just stopped feeling like me, and I realised that it would take more than a change of employer to make me feel comfortable in the corporate environment.’

Cecelia likens that realisation to an illusion shattering. ‘It’s devastating when you realise that the identity you have built (in my case, around my work) no longer accurately reflects who you are,’ she says.

The first step in her reinvention, therefore, was finding the answer to the question: who am I? Cecelia started by looking back to the things she enjoyed as a child, asking her parents and siblings what they remembered about her hobbies. Their responses always alluded to creativity: she remembered that she had been an enthusiastic dancer, a choreographer and even a dressmaker.

It wasn’t really a question of returning to creativity, though, because Cecilia had maintained her curiosity as a maker throughout her corporate career. ‘I never felt that I was choosing between my left and right brain in my profession. I think that creativity is about imagining something, then bringing it to life, and I was able to do that through my work. Now, I wanted to do that in a different way.’

Many different ways, as it turned out. Cecelia tried several different concepts, experimenting with a line of women’s blazers and a range of curated gift boxes, before she breathed life into CeSwa. She laughingly reveals that her husband calls her an ‘ideas generator’ because of her tendency to pivot when something no longer feels right but this, she insists, is a critical part of the process. It’s all about finding that certain something where everything feels aligned.

An intentional approach

And that’s precisely what happened with CeSwa. She leveraged her accounting background to develop an intentional approach to design, which encompassed factors like material consistency and standardised hardware to ensure quality, durability and design cohesion. The lunch bag seemed to be the perfect product for this model but, more than this, it reflected where Cecelia was in her life: ‘trying to be present in the moment, rather than always looking ahead; a feat that’s best realised when you look for the extraordinary in the ordinary.’

Building on this insight, Cecilia toyed with the idea that bags, and lunch bags, are not actually about function; rather, the encompass everything that women carry – which is rather a lot! This led her to research the history of bags, from the time women didn’t carry anything at all to the introduction of pouches and the evolution of the handbag as a status symbol. This exploration eventually led to the question of whether the modern handbag truly supports the woman who carries everything − an idea that continues to shape CeSwa’s design direction. CeSwa embodies all of this: while undeniably a covetable luxury item, it is also highly functional, thanks to the lunch companion. Although she was, at first, doubtful that the concept would appeal (especially at a price point which reflects its uniqueness and the brand’s commitment to craftsmanship and quality), it has resonated with its intended audience, with the first limited product drops completely sold out and an invitation to appear at the prestigious Kamers artisan market ensuring greater exposure.

Being in the moment

The brand’s success is all the more impressive considering that it was launched just one week after the birth of Cecelia’s second child. ‘I remember packing orders just after my C-section, because I was convinced no one else would do things exactly as I wished!’ she says.

She laughs as she makes this admission, but it represents a tension many mothers understand all too well. Cecelia’s attitude helps her simplify the dichotomy: ‘When things are aligned, I’m content. I’m not pretending that I’m superwoman, but whatever I am doing becomes my all in that moment. That means that when I’m parenting, I choose to anchor in the present moment and choose quality time over quantity. On the other hand, when I am working, I don’t feel guilty. That’s a waste of energy.’

This philosophy links to Cecilia’s belief that when you detach from the things that weigh you down, your capacity is opened beyond what you could imagine. She found this to be true when writing her first book, Not in His Cards. ‘I had always wanted to write a book, but I couldn’t get past opening my laptop. Then, almost immediately after leaving corporate, I had a dream about one of the main characters in my book in question. I went on to write it in two days.’

Looking ahead

Cecelia is now working on her second book, Not in My Cards; a reflection on ‘my corporate experiences and the process of understanding workplace dynamics, while coming to terms with the realisation that many of those experiences had little to do with me and everything to do with the environments I found myself in’. She is also experimenting with AI, and has developed Ashlight, a workplace support platform that helps users deal with toxic workplaces. And, in the meantime, she continues to think about how to expand CeSwa. ‘I’m not sure what’s next up, but it may be a reimagining of the ritual of movement,’ she reveals.