Cape Town-based streetwear collective Broke Boys and Amsterdam-based photographic artist Nick van Tiem have formed a strong alliance over the years, one that has included a collaborative range of T-shirts with Dutch brand The New Originals. Here, as Nataal debuts their story featuring the TNO collection worn by the Broke Boys Sk8 Club (Broke Boys’ wider collective of skate enthusiasts), co-founder Andile Dlamini and Tiem discuss their fruitful friendship.

How did you originally meet?

Nick van Tiem: Every year I spend a month in Cape Town and five years ago I shot Andile’s portrait for i-D magazine. The following year he modelled for TNO and he introduced me to the rest of Broke Boys (Mwandile, Sindiso, Bobo and Bino) and we’ve had so many adventures ever since! They’ve really grown their brand and community over the years so this project with TNO was really cool because it was a collaboration between the two brands as equals.

Andile Dlamini: My friend, photographer Kyle Weeks, told me that Nick had come to town and was looking for some faces to shoot. Nick came up to my place and we shot something and afterwards we were just listening to music and chatting. That’s how me and Nick became brothers from two different worlds.

Was this friendship pretty much instantaneous?

A.D: I would say so. I was super young then, really keen to learn and meet new people. And meeting someone like Nick who was willing to share my story and listen to me and teach me what he knows - it just started from there. And ever since then, whenever he’s in town we build on our body of work and keep bonding.

N.V.T: You know, Andile, you're just as old now as I was when I met you.

A.D: It’s been a minute! And the only thing that’s come between us has been Covid. We’re always in touch, forever chatting and trying to find ways to help each other grow.

How have you moved from the photographer-subject dynamic to becoming fully collaborative?

A.D: Early on Nick found out that I’m special! I had a lot more to offer than just being in front of the camera. I started telling him about Broke Boys, how I thrift clothes, how I was trying to balance everything, my challenges and goals. The life I had then, in 2016, was all goals and aspirations - I was trying to paint a picture to him of how I wanted to grow my brand to the point that it was international and it actually has got to that point now with help from him.

N.V.T: The first time we shot for TNO, which was the second year I was out in Cape Town, you styled that shoot as well. You were living in Kuils River back then, right? It was crazy, I arrived at this random place on the outskirts of Cape Town at 6am and got to your home and there was this afterparty going on. That was such an epic day.

Tell us about working on this project.

A.D: As we were shooting that campaign for TNO, I was interested in the feel and weight of the fabrics that they used. Then he said, ‘Maybe one day you’ll do a collab with them’. At the time, we were just printing on T-shirts, but fast forward two or three years and we’re making things from scratch. So, Nick introduced me to the guy behind TNO on Zoom and we started thinking of the best ways of communicating both brands while bringing together Europe and Africa.

N.V.T: I remember you said, ‘Okay, I think now it's time to show the community what we're building here, to show the people that everybody can be a Broke Boy.’

A.D: Yeah, we wanted to show the extended Broke family, so we shot it on the guys from Broke Boys Sk8 Club.

What is the philosophy of Broke Boys and how does it align with that of TNO?

A.D: Broke represents a family. Broke is a cross-cultural clothing brand for misfits and rebels. Same goes for TNO, its slogan is ‘Artists are the new athletes’, so it’s a matter of representing the things that make sense to you and your community. What we have in common is that we’re both about people before anything else.

Tell us about Broke Boys Sk8 Club.

A.D: A year or two ago, I found out about this movement called Ghetto Grunge, which is in a township called Khayelitsha. They’re a group of young men with similar interests to us but they’ve not yet achieved as much. And I found out that they’re skaters, which I was intrigued by because Khayelitsha isn’t a place that encourages skating. It has potholes and sewage water running through it, and because I’m from there, I know that they’re going against the grain. That’s what Broke is about, not conforming to expectations. Being in the township, it’s hard for them to achieve what they want. At the time I had a partnership with Converse, so I gave them my skate shoes and it’s grown from there.

N.V.T: They’re so inspiring, if you see their Instagram, they’re literally putting bricks up in the middle of the street to make grind reels so kids can go skate.

A.D: That’s what skate culture is all about - making the most of what you have and spending time with your friends.