Zydia Botes of Something Good Studio
After years working in the fast-paced fashion industry, Zydia Botes found herself craving something slower. That desire became Something Good Studio, a collaborative design practice built around craftsmanship, meaningful partnerships and beautifully made objects. Alongside Romaria Knitwear, the luxury knitwear label she co-founded with designer Carla Pinto, Botes now brings that philosophy to Nine Yards, where art, textiles and fashion meet.
What inspired you to leave the traditional fashion supply chain and create Something Good Studio?
Fashion taught me how products are made. Something Good Studio taught me that textiles could be a canvas for something much bigger. Somewhere along the way, I realised I was less interested in designing for seasons and more interested in creating meaningful collections that connect art, design and everyday life. We believe beautiful work begins with curiosity, not certainty, and that thoughtfully designed objects can make ordinary life feel a little more meaningful.
What has entrepreneurship taught you about yourself?
It’s taught me to trust myself in public. Confidence isn’t having all the answers. It’s making the next decision before you feel completely ready, learning from it, and making another one.
Creative industries often involve uncertainty and risk. What has helped you persevere?
Curiosity and partnership. Every season teaches me something new. I’ve stopped measuring success by the finished piece alone. The conversations, collaborations and experiments that don’t quite work often become the most meaningful part of the journey. Resilience isn’t about certainty. It’s about staying curious enough to take the next step.
What does celebrating women in business mean to you?
Working on our Shero Cloak completely shifted my understanding of what celebrating women actually means. We’re an all-women team, and we set out to create a modern superhero cape. But what stayed with me wasn’t the garment. It was watching women put it on. Their posture changed. Their confidence changed. Some laughed, some cried, and I realised how transformative it is when women encourage one another to step into their own story with a little more courage, to step into their power.
The biggest surprise was that I needed the same reminder. I think celebrating women in business is less about telling each other we’re unstoppable, and more about helping each other truly believe it.
Robyn Keyser of Artclub and Friends
For Robyn Keyser, fashion has always been about more than clothing. Since founding Artclub and Friends in 2016, she has built a brand where artists, makers and storytellers are as central to the garments as the fabrics themselves. Now bringing that philosophy to Nine Yards, Keyser continues to champion slow fashion, conscious craftsmanship and creative collaboration.
What was the biggest challenge in turning a creative idea into a sustainable business?
Learning that loving what you make is not the same as knowing how to build a business around it. I started with no formal training, so I was learning to run a company while already running one. And the lesson that changed everything was a hard one.
The turning point was being brave enough to look closely at what was working and what we were holding on to out of sentiment. It meant letting go of places we had been so proud to be in. I think so many creative founders get stuck right there, not for lack of ideas but because that honest look feels like betraying the dream. It is the opposite; it’s what lets the dream survive.
Why was Nine Yards the right place for Artclub and Friends’ Johannesburg store?
We were not looking for a location, we were looking for a home.
Artclub is Cape Town-based, but Johannesburg raised me. Opening our first standalone store in my hometown has moved me more than I expected. There is something quite overwhelming about bringing it back to the city that made you the thing you went away and built. It helped that Nine Yards did with buildings what we try to do with clothing. They restored 13 old structures instead of flattening them.
And the neighbours make our case for us — makers, independent businesses, the Goodman Gallery across the road. Someone can buy vegetables, look at art, and walk out wearing a young South African artist’s work in one morning. That is what we have been arguing for years, finally built into the ground.
What does collaboration with artists add to the clothing beyond aesthetics?
It puts a name and a person behind the work, which is the whole reason we exist. We were built by artists, for artists, and creating real paying platforms for young South African creatives has always been the point, so collaboration is not a seasonal design choice. It is the business. Artists are credited, artists are paid, and their work reaches people who might never walk into a gallery.
What challenges have you faced as a woman building a fashion business?
Being a woman in business has unlocked far more than it has cost me. The challenge people expect me to name is being underestimated and it does happen. But the shift I am living right now is the one that has changed me most. I am preparing to become a mother while running this business, and I expected it to feel like something being taken from me. It has been the opposite. Knowing my time is about to become truly finite has made me clearer than I have ever been about what matters.
Women carry so much alongside what they build. I have stopped seeing that as something to work around. It is exactly where the strength comes from.
Sunday Times Lifestyle
