Passion Won't Pay Rent: Five Hard Truths from FEDISA's Industry Panel
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
On Thursday 27 August, FEDISA hosted its Professional Development Workshop in the 3rd Floor Concepts Lounge, bringing five industry professionals together to talk to 3rd year students about what it actually takes to build a career in fashion, media and retail.
From mood boards to budgeting, the panel covered a lot of ground, but a few themes kept surfacing: humility, relationships, and the gap between the industry students imagine and the one they are about to enter.
Here is what each speaker had to say.
From Mood Board to Marketing: Amy Steenkamp, Editor of Bona and Woman & Home
Amy Steenkamp opened the session by looking back at her own start in the industry, an internship in France that she still, more than a decade later, calls the most valuable learning experience of her career. Her advice to students hoping to follow a similar path was blunt: “become a sponge in this industry.”
She also made the case for print in an age of endless digital noise. Scrolling the news, she said, means constant interruptions, notifications, and pop-ups pulling her attention in every direction. Picking up an actual magazine or newspaper is different: “no one interrupting my attention.” For her, that quiet, focused engagement is exactly what keeps print alive alongside digital, not despite it.
She closed with a personal note on why she chose this path at all. Amy was on track to become a doctor before deciding to follow fashion instead, a decision she has since written about publicly, choosing “passion over money.” Her final piece of advice to the room tied it all together: walk into a room knowing exactly what you can offer, but stay humble enough to keep learning from everyone in it.
Building the Bridge Between Creative and Commercial: Kayla Petermann, Project Manager at Habari Media
Kayla Petermann’s story started with a suitcase, no job, and no contacts in Cape Town, and the simple ambition to “become rich and famous.” The reality, she admitted, was tougher than she expected. But the years of door-knocking before she landed her first job in media taught her lessons she could not have bought any other way.
Now twelve years into her career and working on the commercial side of the business, Kayla’s focus has shifted from creating brands to getting them in front of the right people. Having strategised campaigns for major names, she was clear that no single audience tells the whole story: what works for one demographic will not automatically work for another, which is why multichannel thinking matters.
On the print versus digital question, Kayla brought a commercial angle to match Amy’s emotional one. The magazine she works on is turning 70 this year and still holds a loyal, engaged readership, even as the brand invests heavily in digital. The goal, as she put it, is evolving for a digital audience “without excluding the loyal” print one.
Accountability, Relationships and Writing Your Own Story: Candice Burgess-Look, Co-Founder & Director of KOJ PR & Communications
Candice Burgess-Look’s segment centred on the softer skills that hold a career together. She spoke about the importance of relationship building and, specifically, accountability: being someone who can own a mistake rather than sweep it aside. Her framing of career growth was memorable too, describing everyone as constantly “writing their own book,” where the more you take on and learn, the more that story grows.
Taking Care of What You Already Have: Jo Farah, Founder & CEO of The Lab
Jo Farah’s business started small in 2012, in an office not far from where the panel was being held, and has since grown into a company selling across 65 countries, alongside major global brands. But his focus during the talk was less about scale and more about philosophy: his products are built around the idea that "the most sustainable thing" a person owns is what they already have, not what they buy next.
That philosophy shows up in the product itself, which is bacteria and probiotic based. He noted how much easier that conversation has become in recent years, now that people understand probiotics and the microbiome, compared to when he first had to convince customers that bacteria belonged in a cleaning product.
Jo also pushed back on a real problem in the sustainability space: greenwashing. His company is working on multiple fronts at once, developing sustainable textiles using microbials and enzymes instead of heavy bleach and chemicals, partnering with retailers on in-store take-back so garments do not end up in landfill, and working directly with sorting facilities to get more garments resold rather than dumped. All of the research and development happens locally, drawing on what he called a genuinely strong pool of scientific talent in South Africa.
His advice to students building their own brands was to think carefully about what they are putting into the world, since a brand's community, and what that community stands for, is ultimately the thing people remember.
The Real Economics of South African Retail: Courtney Grant, Chief Facilitator at Cape Clothing and Textile Cluster
Courtney Grant brought the panel back down to earth with a supply chain and retail perspective that challenged some of the romanticism around fashion. Her opening question cut straight to it: what does clothing actually give people? Her answer: “dignity” and “the opportunity to express who they are.”
But she was equally clear that most of the South African retail market is not about niche or passion, it is about value, because a large share of South African consumers are simply trying to afford to clothe their families. That reality has been reshaped in recent years by international players like Shein and Temu, which have taken on a market share comparable to some of South Africa’s largest retailers by skipping the duties local retailers pay, training consumers to expect fashionable products at extremely low prices.
She also pointed to the shrinking wallet share available for clothing altogether, as other spending categories compete for the same limited household budget. And she reminded the room what is actually at stake behind the numbers: South African retail and its local manufacturing supply chain support hundreds of thousands of jobs, each one typically supporting multiple family members.
Courtney had a direct message for the room too, pointing out how few students present were pursuing fabric technology, pattern-making or garment construction, skills she called “a lost art form in South Africa” that the industry badly needs. Her closing advice was about supplier relationships: treating manufacturers as purely transactional, and dropping them the moment someone cheaper comes along, means never building the trust that a long-term brand actually needs.
Making Your Creativity Financially Sustainable: Sebastian Balman, Relationship Manager at Allan Gray
Sebastian Balman closed the session with a wake-up call on personal finance. Only around 6% of working South Africans, he said, will have enough saved to retire comfortably, a statistic he called genuinely shocking and one his generation needs to take seriously. The alternative, without planning, is depending on your own children financially later in life.
He was refreshingly honest that he has never enjoyed budgeting himself, which made his framework land as practical rather than preachy: a simple 50/30/20 split. 50% of income goes to essentials like rent, petrol, medical costs and food. 30% goes to discretionary spending. The remaining 20%, he stressed, is the most important part of the whole budget, and should go straight into savings and investments before it gets the chance to be spent elsewhere.
He also warned against parking that money in an ordinary bank savings account, where returns after inflation barely outpace it. His recommendation was to look at proper investment vehicles, where money is spread across a mix of assets like stocks and bonds, rather than sitting still.
The Common Thread
Across five very different careers, fashion editorial, commercial media, PR, sustainable product development, retail supply chains, and personal finance, the same ideas kept resurfacing: show up humble, build real relationships, understand the economics behind the creativity, and take responsibility for your own future, financially and professionally.
For a room full of students on the edge of that industry, it was a grounded, occasionally uncomfortable, and ultimately useful reality check.
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