Weaving Joy
Selorm Fefeti ’11 is fusing fashion and cultural preservation with his New York/Ghana-made clothing brand.
For Selorm Fefeti ’11, it started with a gift.
A few years ago, his father, Simon, sent him a package. Inside sat a colorful coat, hand-woven with kente cloth from their hometown of Agotime Kpetoe, Ghana. It was a piece of home, a piece of the culture Selorm had missed after moving to New York City a decade ago.
Selorm knows how to pull something off. So he didn’t hesitate to don the vibrant, uniquely-patterned coat on the streets of the city. People stopped him with compliments, and he began to think: “Maybe we have something here.”
Thus Fefeti, a fashion brand centered around the national cloth of Ghana, was born. Since 2023, Selorm has been working with his father to bring hand-woven kente fabrics from Ghana to New York, where he works with Black-owned and other marginalized manufacturers to bring the cloth to life. Kente cloth is usually reserved for special occasions in Ghana—weddings, funerals, the like—but Fefeti, a word which means “the importance of joy,” revives the textile into coats, blazers, and bucket hats fit for everyday wear.
“Kente is more than fabric,” Selorm says. “It’s a living story of heritage, identity, and pride. Each pattern carries deep cultural meaning. Through Fefeti, I aim to preserve and reimagine kente—giving it new life in modern fashion while supporting the artisans who keep this centuries-old tradition alive.”
Keeping the tradition alive is no easy feat. The craft of kente has begun to fade in recent years because of cultural programs lacking funding and younger generations moving away from the art form. In October 2025, Ghana granted kente Geographical Indication protection, a way to ensure the fabric stays in Ghanaian hands. Fefeti carries similar values forward with a focus on preserving these cultural traditions.
Selorm works full time as a product manager with Fefeti as his side passion, but he says the two are not very different. “Building Fefeti feels like launching a product—finding a gap, shaping an idea, and bringing it to life—except here, the product is heritage, craft, and culture,” he says.
Breaking into the fashion industry is difficult and expensive. But Selorm says the skills he gained at Reed—challenging conventions, connecting ideas, and building meaningful things from the ground up—have helped him on the path. Plus, the community he met at Reed has given him the courage to keep going.
Lately, he’s had two big wins. Last fall, a Fefeti collection appeared in a SoHo boutique for in-person browsing and purchasing. And filmmaker Spike Lee posted a picture of himself on Instagram sporting a Fefeti limited-edition New York Knicks inspired bucket hat. “It was exciting for me,” Selorm recalls. “It was like validation in a sense.” (Lee has also since worn a Fefeti blazer to a few awards shows.)
Last summer, Selorm visited his hometown for the 30th anniversary of the Agotime Kpetoe Festival, an event that highlights the rich history of kente weaving. He and Lucy Sexton ’12, an Emmy-award winning filmmaker, are working up an idea for a short documentary about the fabric. The festival marked a chance for Selorm to reconnect with his roots, and to meet with the local artisans who are helping to make Fefeti possible.
With his clothing brand, Selorm hopes to infuse heritage, craftsmanship, and culture into everyday life. To him, Fefeti embodies those ideas by transforming kente into visually striking, culturally significant pieces of art—as he puts it: “Beauty, to me, is where story meets craft.”
Tags: Alumni, International