By Kristy Hesom
Guests from the fashion and media industry were invited to peruse the unique and dynamic styles of all the permanent stores at The Workshop, as well as the pop up exhibitions of the eight finalists for the Style Reporter Award.
Once guests had done their shopping and mingling, Emilie Gambade, editor of ELLE South Africa, rallied everyone up to make the announcement.
“The ELLE Style Reporter started three years ago, and when it launched the idea was to support young, emerging photographers. Goodness, we have been graced with amazing talent,” expressed Gambade.
Gambade continued; “It’s super exciting, because the winner is going to spend six months with ELLE, he or she is going to have a page in the magazine every month, and I cannot wait to see what that page is going to look like. It’s exciting for us a team, it exciting for, hopefully, the winner, and for our partnership with Orms and Canon that we hope to continue for a long time to come.”
Annelien Moerdijk, marketing manager at Orms then took over; “It’s really just been an exciting journey. Orms and Canon is all about empowering young and upcoming photographers and this was a great initiative to showcase this through the ELLE Style Reporter Award search.”
Not wanting to forget the finalists, Moerdijk said; “All eight of you are here, and you are all so, so talented. Specifically from a photographic angle, we were blown away. So although there will only be one winner tonight, we hope all of you will pursue your dream as photographers.”
“The winner tonight will also walk away with a Canon EOS 6D DSLR with EF 24-105mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens to the value of R25 495, and we really hope this will help in your photography journey,” Moerdijk continued.
ELLE fashion director, Tarryn Oppe, then took the audience through the judging process; “It was tough. Starting with 300 entrants, we narrowed it down to 20, and from there we had major discussions and eventually got to our final eight. There were many debates, the talent is just incredible and it was very difficult for us to decide. But, without further ado … ”
Together with Gambade, the announced was made; “The winner of the 2016 ELLE Style Reporter is … Themba Mbuyisa.”
Overcome with emotion, Mbuyisa said; “I was not expecting this. Us finalists, we had a really tough challenge, and I’m very happy to receive this award knowing that the challenge was really tough. I wasn’t expecting this, and I am really excited. Good luck to the finalists who joined me on this journey.”
Reiterating several times that he wasn’t expecting the award, Mbuyisa thanked everyone involved and went on to hug his fellow contestants who were in the crowd, as well as everyone else.