VUKANI Award for Tarien
- CANDICE HARTZENSERG

THE 13th Old Mutual Vukani Fashion Awards recently were presented at the Menlyn Park Shopping Mall in Pretoria.
Fifteen finalists from around South Africa had the opportunity to showcase their designs. Prizes included money and bursaries for the winners. Designs entered had to be a simple solution to expressing South African youth culture. At the same time it should be able to successfully compete on international level. Young designers competed in the categories Most Innovative Designer, Best Haute Couture Collection and Best Overall Collection.

Tarien Malherbe, a third-year fashion design student at the Elizabeth Galloway Academy of Fashion Design, walked away with the award for Most Innovative Designer. "I was surprised when I heard I had won! I am proud to be showing this range on 29 June at the MTN Young Designers ' show at Durban Fashion Week and again at the Cape Town Fashion Week in August."

Tarien chose as her theme, "Fanagalo becomes a lifestyle". "As the new generation of South African youth, we could have easily chosen to continue living in the hurt and hatred of our past and let it consume and destruct our future as well, but we did not. We have put the apartheid burdens of our past behind us, forgave our South African brothers and sisters, and moved on.

"Today we are one, and therefore I see Fanagalo as much more than a language. I see it as a lifestyle, a merging of culture and heritage, a new identity that is uniquely our own – something we as South Africans can be proud of and celebrate," she explained. She wanted to depict this concept in her designs.

Tarien did most of the work after class. "I worked every day, even during the night," she admits. As for the future, Tarien wants to open her own business where designer's can sell their different brands under one roof.

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