The single force underpinning our capacity for creativity is human connection. On the altar of artistic expression, our work can only be transformed by our ability to love each other, community and life itself. If there were a creative duo steeped in this notion – of love and creativity intertwined – it would be Armand Dicker and Anthony Hinrichsen. Their collaborative story is bound by their love for each other and their simultaneous and respective visions for life, fashion, art, exploration – and then some. As creative and life partners, I am struck by the ‘twin-soul’ essence of Ant and Armand together; like spiritual mirrors to each, their work as a creative duo acts as a container for the redirection of their energies coming together. This is what makes their duo-ship, Dicker & Dane, one of the most compelling forces in the sartorial landscape. Just in the week that I am writing this, their exclusive story for Vogue Portugal has been published. With photography, creative direction and styling created by the duo alongside their small team – the editorial is a mid-century dreamscape, featuring garments by local labels Viviers, Rich Mnisi, MMUSOMAXWELL, Cape Cobra Leathercraft, Amble and LABHOMMES.

While the pair mostly reside in Cape Town, the last few years have seen them work between various places in the world from Paris, to London and now, Bangkok. In our conversation, Ant shares that this is his third time living in Thailand – and Armand’s second time. It was the place in which Ant’s initial trajectory in fashion was first realised, as he says “I studied film and television production and then right after university, I got an opportunity to come to Thailand. I did the teaching thing for a bit and then realised it wasn’t really the life for me, so I caught a bus into Bangkok and managed to meet a boss on the same day who introduced me to the fashion industry here. My first job in fashion was working in PR and international sales for a Thai brand.” After returning to South Africa, Ant honed his editorial skills at Gingko Agency in their ‘Beautiful News’ division, a space that releases one positive short film per day.

“I wanted to come to South Africa and be part of the industry there, but at the time – just under a decade ago – there didn’t feel like there were many opportunities. Especially compared to what I had experienced in Thailand, which is a very vibrant and amazing industry. Thai locals support Thai designers and the Thai government provides a lot of funding – people can really create here.”

For Armand, design was his initial segue into fashion, noted for his brand ‘Dicker’, “I have always had an affinity for fashion from my very early teenage years. I think the Devil Wears Prada woke that up for me. I studied fashion after school and some great things happened for me. I started interning with South African designers who I felt had an international edge and during my holidays I was interning at SA Fashion Week, with Suzaan Heyns. My final collection at school was done with the intention to get it into AFI Fastrack, which I did and ended up in the top four alongside Thebe Magugu, Nthabiseng Molefe and Martelle Ludik.”

When Armand and Ant started dating in Cape Town, they moved to Thailand together and spent two years between Malaysia and Thailand, Ant says “we moved here together as models but we weren’t really getting the kinds of jobs that we wanted. We started styling together and decided to make our own editorials. That’s when our duo really started.” Lockdown would bring them back to Cape Town, and into a cocoon that fostered their respective knowledge and skill sets towards developing their duo. As Ant says, “we started testing stories with friends. I think for us, it’s always been important to have creative control and to maintain final say on images, casting and styling. It made more sense that we worked as a duo in which we could contain what we really wanted to say with our work, individually and together.”

It has been three full years of Dicker & Dane and the results have surpassed their expectations. At the beginning, Ant and Armand wrote down a vision list of what they wanted to achieve for the next ten years; three years later and their final wish, a Vogue Portugal cover (for the June print issue, The Voyage Issue) has already happened. Another one of those wishes was Ant’s dream to style an Iris van Herpen piece; lo and behold, Ant describes a chance trip to Paris, “we tried our luck and they sent four dresses down from Amsterdam to Paris, for us to shoot. It was unbelievable.” In terms of their duo-ship, Armand says “it really happened through our everyday life together. We’ll be sitting watching Drag Race or we’ll be in an uber together and we usually see something – like a piece of clothing or an object. We live in each other’s heads so much and we are so sync, so when something arises around us that piques our interest – usually a story or editorial unfolds from there. We are a bit telepathic. Even those inflatable heads for the Vogue Portugal cover, we found those in Bangkok last year and we knew that we were going to save them for something special.” This kind of unified mind is the nexus of their power together – and is why their seamless execution reaches beyond the siloed, individualistic structure that fashion production has traditionally been built upon. Together, Ant and Armand allow each other to dream bigger and better. 

For Dicker & Dane, there is a principle to their work that goes beyond the final images – even beyond the garments, or the creative features of their stories. Casting is their primary focus, particularly driven by their uncompromising view on representation and inclusion. Armand says, “I mean, Ant won’t say it himself – but I know the impact that he has scouted. Laura Ashleigh Meyer for example, at Topco, was the first differently abled model on the main board of any agency in the country. A model he found, his first shoot was with Vogue Portugal and another, their first job was with adidas in Times Square. I think we have been part of getting young, aspiring models to realise that there is a space for them in fashion. Our creative work has managed to create spaces for people –  that’s bigger for us than many of the achievements of the past and future.” 

I ask about their inclination to travel together, working and living relatively nomadically. Ant says, “I think this way of living is ingrained in me. There was a point in my childhood where we moved 12 times in two years. I was just young enough to not grasp the seriousness or stressfulness of this; for me, it was a big adventure each time – a new house, a new street, a new opportunity for exploration. I’ve kind of kept that delusion into my adulthood. I actually love being slightly unsettled in new spaces and I think it pushes me. If I spend too much time somewhere, I get a little stagnant – I am someone who could live in my lounge for the rest of my life. To make sure that happens, I think moving around is my solution to that. We absolutely love being a travelling team.” Based in Bangkok, Dicker & Dane laud the Thai consciousness for art and beauty in their everyday life. Being able to walk endlessly and take images – piqued by new and bright perspectives offered by the city – form the pulse of their current thinking and considerations in their work. For the duo, their primary focus are the Asian and European markets, each offering an endless array of possibilities.

Integrity is crucial to Ant and Armand’s practice. As Ant says, “we have very strict rules as to what’s okay and what’s not okay. Whether it’s our own set or our client’s set, those rules are the same. If I see someone in our team being disrespected by anyone on set, then we all leave set. No single job is more important than how the people who are working on it are feeling. Fashion has a bad reputation for how people get treated. Before we were in charge of the sets ourselves, we both witnessed deep disrespect to others and experienced that ourselves.” He goes on to say that, “my first shoot as a model, I didn’t realise until years later that it was an assault. When I modelled years later with Armand and we could speak about it, then I realised “oh, it’s not actually normal for a photographer to put their hands in your pants to ‘adjust you’” – so this is a big focus of ours, and every set we do starts with a conversation with the model. If anything makes them uncomfortable, or what their boundaries are, or even if they don’t want to wear something – we make sure that as a team, we understand all of those things. We take what we do very seriously but we are not brain surgeons – we can adapt and evolve on set. These rules are non-negotiable. We hold ourselves and our clients to these same standards.” This energy of safety and respect is the precise dose that fashion requires to remedy its reputation – and Dicker & Duo administer the future of fashion with stunning effect. 

As for the vision going forward, the duo have given up dreaming. Not for any reason other than as an act of trust in what they are doing. For months, it felt like things weren’t moving; until suddenly, everything they had wished for happened at once. This act of trust and flow is a profound teaching for any creative; the ability to tap into the timing that Universe seemingly lays out, rather than the timelines we decide in our minds. Dicker & Dane have achieved much, but that’s scratching the surface. Their pathway tells the tale of the highest mandate in true, sartorial consciousness.

Cover Image by @rynostols

Written by: Holly Beaton

A little earlier in the year, a mysterious campaign cropped up on my feed. A brand simply titled ‘KADE’, the campaign featured South African fashion titans like Chloe Andrea Welgemoed (Thebe’s art director), Tamara Moeng (model extraordinaire) and more – shot by Aart Verrips. The images depict a brand so startling, original, colourful and exemplary of good craftsmanship, that I simply had to know more. Cue, this conversation with Skyler Kade Williams – the designer behind KADE and one half Joburg fashion scene’s cult-secret (not-so-secret, secret), Stylist’s Own. This wardrobe studio is one of the strongest weapons in the arsenal of many of Joburg’s best stylists, offering rentals of pieces by young designers – with some stylists even keeping their own archives on the rails for rental. By stylists, for stylists…the dream. 

Not many stylists can be designers; usually, the symbiotic relationship between stylist and designer are perfect in that they fulfil different roles in the realm of sartorial expression. One creates the vision, the other brings that vision alive through campaigns, commercials, editorials and so on. When a stylist does dare to venture to the cutting room floor, one hopes for a foolproof articulation of garment creation. KADE, it seems, is precisely that. As Skyler says on the relationship to styling as his foundational learning in the fashion industry, “ ‘Stylists Own’ is a space that caters to young designers, offering them the opportunity to have their brands rented by stylists for shoots. We show them how the system works and connect with stylists on their behalf, and in return they receive a commission for the rentals of their pieces. Being in this kind of space really inspired me to start designing.” Stylist’s Own is the brainchild of South African fashion veteran, Nola Williams. As Skyler’s mom, the two now run the space, as he says, “my mom has been a stylist for thirty years so I grew up being on set and being fascinated with that world. I actually ended up doing a biomedical degree after school, but I would find myself skipping lectures to assist stylists for shoots. That grew and grew, I started getting my own jobs and meeting people in fashion.”

Few designers get the kind of go-ahead to take the plunge. For Skyler, the proverbial nod of approval came from none other than  Rich Mnisi. What more could one ask for? “I met Rich on a Johnny Walker job a few years ago when I was assisting Bee Diamondhead and he was really lovely. I had made this one floral satin shirt – which was the first thing I had ever made – and I went to ask Bradley, his brand manager, what he thought. Rich answered the door and he asked me to make matching pants, and he wore that to Paris Fashion Week as one of his looks.” This moment had a lasting effect on Skyler’s vision for creating a brand that wove together his instincts as a stylist and his talent for construction, “KADE is born from my fascination with upcycling. It’s hard to scale it, so it’s a work in progress in terms of my business model, but to create once off, customised pieces that are up-cycled is the primary focus of KADE.”

On the genesis of KADE’s first campaign, Skyler explains that “I pulled in our community to create KADE’s first campaign – Aart (Verrips), Chloe (Welgemoed) and so on. Fashion is a competitive space but I am so grateful to be part of a community of fashion creatives who live and work in these spaces as friends.” The first pieces showcase stunning up-cycling feats; the inspiration which feels equally cyber as it does street-relevant. Sklyer says of the motivations behind KADE’s design language, “I grew up as a dancer so KADE is very inspired by 90s music, New York street culture and the freedom of expression in those spaces. I have four or five rails of denim that I’ve thrifted so the next collection will be dedicated to my love for denim – there are different dyes, colours and textures so I’ll be using those to create different ways through upcycling.”

In addition to the launch of KADE, Stylist’s Own is preparing to launch a retail space. This will serve as a continuation of their support for young designers and their commitment to fostering ways and means for stylists, designers and consignor’s to earn money on archives of collections that tend to not have a platform to be sold from. As Skyler says, “we are launching an online retail space called SNATCH which is going to be a retail arm of what we do. We will be encouraging designers to create pieces that are once-off, sustainable and made through up-cycling or regenerative means. South Africa’s thrifting community is huge and I think the next step is for up-cycling within brands to be an extension of that. SNATCH will focus on pre-loved pieces, local designers, upcycling and consignment for anyone who has really cool pieces that they’d like to sell but are finding it hard to do so.” What more could one ever want, than to shop from a platform curated by stylists? Stylists are the backbone of the fashion industry. Truly some of the most industrious, thrifty and dynamic visionaries of sartorial expression, I ask Skyler how being a stylist has informed KADE – to which he says, “there is a big responsibility on stylists to support local designers and to be a part of how local design grows. Being a stylist myself has informed the way in which KADE will interact with customers, respect timelines and qualities – these are all key for designers to be able to deliver on.”

Regarding South Africa’s future of fashion, Skyler affirms the importance of this moment in the industry from the vantage point of Stylist’s Own and SNATCH – in which he interacts daily with people committed to the success of fashion in the country; “I’m very excited about the future. Just this last month with Rich and H&M or Thebe and Orlando Pirates, Wanda and Savanna Dry and Nao with Reebok – these collaborations are really showing us the possibilities ahead. I think it’s interesting to see how bigger, established brands are providing some of the resources or infrastructure for local designers to realise some of their visions. At Stylist’s Own, We see firsthand how these moments can have such a profound impact on young designers who are navigating a really difficult industry.” 

KADE offers the promise of up-cycling, while Skyler exemplifies what it means to be of service in South Africa’s fashion industry. Few are as committed to actionable, sustaining and community-centric network building. Certainly, watch this space.

Campaign Credits ///
Photographer: Aart Verrips @aart.verrips
Art Director & Videographer: @chloeandreawelgemoed
Creative Director: Nola Williams @stylistsown_
Stylist: Skyler Williams @skylerkadewilliams
Make Up HOD:  Annice Roux Gerber @annicemakeup
Hair: Tienie Richards & Gareth Strydom @hairystyles_za & @gigi.hairdid
Video Editor:  Jacob Claassens @jjclaass
Photographer Assistant: Zwele Buthelezi @izwele
Make Up Assistant: Boiketlo Mokoena @boiketlo_mokoena
Make Up Assistant: Kayla Macedo @kaylamacedo.makeup
Stylist Assistant: Jackson Setati @jksnstyles
Production Co-Ordinator: Sophia Lee @sophiatheasian85
Creative Studio: Spaanspeck @spaanspeck
Studio: @sunshinecoza

Written by: Holly Beaton