The Founder's Cut: Cece Liu
On building a brand where equestrian heritage meets elevated design
The Founder’s Cut is a behind-the-scenes look at brand building from the beginning. The highs, the lows, and the unfiltered in-between.
For our next guest on The Founder’s Cut, I’m excited to introduce Cece Liu of Cecilia.
I love a brand with a niche. Cecilia brings such a sharp perspective to fashion, where an equestrian influence meets a elevated eye for design. That’s the world Cece Liu has created.
I first discovered Cecilia on Instagram (I have a knack for finding the next it girl brands), and immediately knew I had to interview Cece. Every detail, from the hardware to the silhouettes, feels chic, modern, and wearable. Also, don’t even get me started on the horseshoe leather bottom of the Leonora bag. That level of detail is what sets a brand apart.
For this edition of The Founder’s Cut, Cece shares the story behind the brand, why she designs for herself first, and her most valuable founder habits.
For anyone new here, tell us a bit about yourself and your background.
Hi, I’m Cece! I was born in Shanghai, grew up in Kansas City, then worked and lived in NYC, Shanghai and Hong Kong before eventually making my way to Los Angeles, where the brand is based (and where I got back into horses). I spent my career as a brand builder working across fashion and creative industries, always drawn to the craft of constructing a visual and emotional world around an idea, and having lived in such diverse cultures definitely added a unique lens to this.
I’m also a fine artist—I work primarily in graphite and charcoal, and horses have always been my primary subject. When I started Cecilia, it was really the convergence of all of those threads: the brand-building, the art practice, and this deep, lifelong obsession with horses that was never going to leave me alone.
What did you feel was missing in the market when you started Cecilia?
I wanted to create a brand that was at the intersection of great design and a genuine, lifelong love of horses—and I felt that space was surprisingly wide open. Something that was functional, wasn’t costume-y, but nostalgic in a way that genuinely honored the depth of what horses mean to the people who love them.
Ultimately I designed for myself first, with real specificity, and I’ve found that when you do that honestly, it resonates with people who’ve been quietly wanting the same thing. For so many women, horses aren’t a hobby—they’re a formative part of who they are. I wanted to create something worthy of that feeling.
The Leonora carryall has become a signature Cecilia style, why do you think it resonated?
I think it’s a combination of things working together. It’s just a really good bag—generous enough to fit everything, lightweight enough to actually carry everywhere, chic enough to take from the barn to the airport to school pickup. The east-west silhouette keeps it from feeling overwhelming on a smaller frame, and that slouchy, unfussy quality means it works for so many different lives.
But the details are where the real connection lies. The horseshoe-shaped base, the stirrup buckles—I’ve found that those details speak so deeply to a particular woman: the horse girl, especially the ones who rode growing up and carry that part of themselves maybe quietly but close. There’s something about seeing those references handled with real craft and elegance—elevated rather than costume-y—that feels like being truly seen. A lot of horse girls have spent years searching for beautiful things that speak to that side of themselves without being overtly “equestrian.” I think we hit that note.
How do you determine which new products to release, and ensure they feel true to Cecilia?
It always starts with a genuine need or curiosity—something I want to exist in the world that doesn't yet, or a material or technique I've become obsessed with researching.
The filter is always: will I want to reach for this over and over? Does it serve a real purpose, and does it do so with beauty and craft? I'm deeply influenced by the traditions of equestrian heritage —master leathercraft, natural textiles, the functional elegance of great tack—and I ask whether a new piece honors that lineage while feeling genuinely contemporary.
How would you describe your design process, from initial idea to final piece?
It starts in a lot of different places—something I notice at the barn, a vintage reference I’ve been sitting with, a personal need that doesn’t yet have a beautiful answer. A silhouette usually comes first, and I sketch a lot. For our fall pieces, feedbags (the kind that horses wear on their heads) were a central inspiration—you’ll see what I mean when they come out!
From there it’s fabrication—what material best serves the piece, and how does it wear over time. I’m slowly amassing a huge library of swatches and my newfound hobby is organizing them! Then hardware and closure details, which is where the horse code really lives. These are the IYKYK moments for anyone who’s spent time around horses. The closure on the detachable pouch on our new Leonora Day tote, for instance, will immediately remind you of taking apart a bridle to clean it. It’s never decorative for its own sake, it’s always rooted in something real.
And then it’s just a lot of living with prototypes. If you’ve seen me recently, I’ve probably been carrying one.
Which parts of building the brand have been the most rewarding, and which have been the most challenging?
The most rewarding has been the community—without question. Horses have a way of finding their people, and I've been genuinely moved by who Cecilia has attracted and everyone I've built relationships with. The people who reach out and say the brand captures something they've quietly carried for years—that's everything.
The most challenging is the reality of running a creative business largely on your own: you are constantly code-switching between the deeply intuitive and the deeply analytical. Between the creative and the operational. It can be disorienting, and finding the rhythm between those two modes is something I'm always working on.
Since starting Cecilia, what’s been the most impactful founder habit or system for you?
Time management—specifically protecting the early morning for myself before the day takes over. My alarm goes off at 5:30am, and those first few hours of the day are sacred. There's a coffee ritual, a little piano, a walk with my dog. I currently have a gym routine but when my shoulder is fully rehabbed, you can be sure I'll be back on my horse.
In the early morning everything is quiet and the world hasn't demanded anything of me yet. I've found that starting there—from a place of calm and intention rather than reaction—sets the tone for the day that follows. The creative and the operational both need that groundedness. Without it, the context-switching becomes exhausting.
For someone launching a brand right now, what advice would you give them?
Design for yourself first—with real specificity. Not for a trend, not for a perceived gap, but for something you genuinely want to exist. You are ultimately the archetype for the customer you will reach. The more specific and honest you are, the more it will resonate with the people who feel exactly the same way and just hadn't found their version of it yet.
Also: build your world before you build your audience. Know exactly what you stand for, what references you draw from, what you will never do. That clarity becomes your compass for every decision, and there will be so, so many decisions.
What’s next for Cecilia?
More of everything—more styles, more events, more activations, more community. For a young brand, the work really comes down to three things: exposure, perception, and distribution, and we’re actively pushing on all three fronts at once. It’s a lot to hold, but it’s also the most energizing part of this stage.
What I’m most excited about is creating more moments where people can actually step into the world of Cecilia—not just discover it through a screen, but feel it. The brand has a very specific atmosphere and sensibility, and there’s nothing quite like experiencing that in person (not just in my head), with other people who share this love. Building that community, giving it places to gather, is something I really want to focus on.
And yes—there is a collaboration in the works that I genuinely cannot say anything about yet, but I promise it’s worth waiting for!
And now for rapid fire questions, a work or life motto you live by?
Literally - get back on the horse. You need to be brave, resilient, and diligent to create the life you want and deserve.
Dream collab?
Besides the one I can’t tell you about, I would love to do something with a jewelry brand I love—Spinelli Kilcollin and Sophie Buhai come to mind—and they’re both LA-based! Hardware is so horse coded and I can just imagine some really cool pieces coming from a collab.
I would also love to collab with Backdrop and design the perfect horse-coded wallpaper, and Sophie Lou Jacobsen for a homewares collection.
Go-to cocktail or coffee order (or both)?
Both! Cocktail: a very cold, very dry, slightly dirty martini. Coffee: Pour over/cold brew with a dash of heavy cream.
Favorite purchase in the last month?
A new car! I’d forgotten how painful the process can be but nothing quite beats the new set of wheels feeling.
I just got the Leonora Carryall in Ink and I’m obsessed. I’ve been using it as both a work bag and travel bag because it fits everything while still looking incredibly chic.
You can explore the collection here and follow @dearcecilia__ on Instagram.
x Alex