Spring Queen in fashion
Prestige Clothing’s Oyena Goniwe crowned at Sactwu’s glamour-filled annual pageant
IT WAS all about beauty, glitz and glamour at the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union’s (Sactwu) 44th Spring Queen pageant.
This year, the crown was awarded to Prestige Clothing’s Oyena Goniwe.
During the year, the new reigning queen spent her time meticulously sewing garments, but now she wants to study further and inspire other young women to develop themselves.
“Being a young person in South Africa comes with many challenges, but being selected to represent my factory showed me that there are still people who want to help we young people achieve things,” said Goniwe.
The annual Spring Queen and fashion pageant is the world’s largest fashion show featuring workers as models.
The pageant gives a face to those behind the locally-produced garments that fill the racks of the country’s retailers.
Sactwu general secretary Andre Kriel said this year’s pageant took place during a time when the union expected to sign a historical retail, clothing, textile, footwear and leather (R-CTFL) agreement with the government and business.
“This agreement will commit retailers to produce more local goods from our industry. It will also contain commitments from Sars to tool up its capacity to fight illegal imports and under-invoicing more aggressively. This is expected to represent a significant step forward in our fight to stop the bleeding of jobs and grow our industry again over the next few years,” said Kriel.
Factory workers from 57 companies came out in their numbers to support the pageant.
The crowd was treated to an electric and energetic performance by Riyadh Roberts, known as YoungsterCPT.
To impress the judges, models strutted the runway in their evening garments, meticulously sown in the factories they represented.
The first princess was Candice Caswell, a designer assistant at Trade Call Investments Apparel (TCIA), and the second princess was Mikayla Daniels, a learner machinist at Pep Clothing.
Tasheen Keet was crowned in the Junior Spring Queen category, where 20 queens will compete.
Taking the stage was also Sactwu’s Own Talent where six contestants battle it out in the music and dance stakes.