Drip Footwear and its owner, Lekau Sehoana, have vacated their shop in Cape Town after falling behind on rent, and the property owner is suing them to recover money owed.
According to V&A Waterfront Holdings, which owns the popular Waterfront mall, from which Drip Footwear and Sehoana have been plying their trade Drip have also left the shop untidy.
Waterfront filed papers in the Johannesburg High Court last week, demanding that Sehoana and his company, who own South Africa’s most popular sneaker, Drip, pay it R1.1-million in unpaid rent or be blacklisted.
Lekau Sehoanaʼs background
When he was a child, Lekau Sehoana made his first pair of sneakers out of recycled materials.
He went on to build a business empire on a lifestyle sneaker brand called Drip, which has grown to be recognised not only nationally but internationally.
From opening the first Drip store in 2020, Lekau now leads a team of 300 people and has 25 brick-and-mortar stores, as well as an online store.
Drip is listed as number 65 on Africa’s Top 100 Most Admired Brands and is at number 2 in South Africa. The 34-year-old has a NQF Level 3 in civil engineering from Ekurhuleni West College.
Lekau, who is also a designer, leads a team of creatives who develop a product strategy and new products .
The proudly South African designer attributes his success to the ability to take advantage of social media for marketing, as well as manage the cash inflows and recognise talent in people who are able to take his business and brand further.
He is driven to excel by “the fear of going back to poverty and seeing other young people work on our dream, the township dream”.
