Dressing Up The Rich And Famous

Jewelry designer Zakiyyah Smailovic is now taking African bling to Dubai.

- Ancillar Mangena

Zakiyyah Smailovic’s origins are in Cape Town but her dreams are for all of Africa.

An entrepreneur first, who wants to create jobs and take African enterprise abroad, she is also a jewelry designer. But before getting there, she had to chisel out the many facets of her own life.

Smailovic was only four when she lost her father and was raised by her mother. She spent six years in boarding school in Zambia, the hardest part of her childhood, then moved to South Africa.

“When we returned to South Africa, city life was not easy for me. It was challenging but it taught me great lessons of strength,” she says. “I had to work hard to put myself through university, however, investing in yourself is the most rewarding feeling in the world.”

The entrepreneur in her was starting to surface, and one of the first signs was her proclivity to take risks.

In 2014, she quit her job in the gold industry to travel. With no idea whatsoever about the future, she fortunately stumbled upon a passion that was going to change her life: jewelry and accessories design.

“I always had an intuition deep down that I could offer something more, something unique with the intention of helping others in the process,” says Smailovic.