Rose as a young girl from a small farm town use to hide in her grandmothers sewing room and use to watch her grandmother create the most beautiful things on an old pedal driven Singer machine.
Rose use to design and hand craft miniature doll clothes for her younger sister's doll collection.
Then later on when she entered high school she designed special events garments and matric fare well dresses for friends and family.
But by the time it came to her Matric fare well, no one could really make herself design custom dress. Unfortunately Rose didn't have the ability to custom craft these beautiful designs since she was in an engineering technician school where they didn't do home economics as a subject. The local acclaimed seamstress made something that sat like a potato sack with the most unflattering fit on poor Rose's athletic build body.
After this particular traumatic event Rose saw a gap in the market. She started looking for colleges where she could study fashion.
With a family full of engineers and farmers this was not something a female was allowed to study. Rose then settled for her third love, the love for people and studied applied, criminal & child psychology. Most way through this course she realised this is not how she is going to change the world.
Rose packed up her life and moved to the smallest place in Melville Johannesburg and worked as a waitress, bar lady and local band organiser at all the local restaurants and bars. As she saved her pennies her boss at the time recognised her talent and knew of a place. Rose's boss then phoned every day till an opening came available. Rose wrote the entrance assessment test. Few days later Rose received the call. You have been excepted to Lisof Fashion Institute.
That moment Rose's life swung a 180 degrees. She went from working till early hours in the morning to running class with like-minded creatives during the day. For the first time Rose felt like she belong. She called the experience ..."I was finally among my tribe"... By Rose.
Rose completed three years of constant grafting, assessments, projects and loved every moment of it. Her friends called the experience ..."paid self-torture for fashion"... By various friends of Rose.
After Lisof Rose struggled to break into the fashion scene despite numerous internships and interviews. Rose eventually teamed up with Claire Hayward and they started a brand called Chi. The brand went on creating beautiful custom garments from weddings to everyday. They also did runway shows, magazine features, theatre costumes, styling shoots from video to photo. They even made gaming and anime cosplay costumes for clients. After three years Rose and Claire went their separate ways but Rose continued creating and developing passion projects from blankets for animal shelters and reinvented sleeping bag for the homeless.
In 2017 Rose was asked by Lisof to bring in her alumni final fashion show garment she made as a third year graduate. This was the next moment in Rose's career where it swung again a little more when she was asked by Shana the CEO of Lisof to come lecture at Lisof.
Rose is still lecturing at Lisof and loving every moment with of course the occasion custom side order for a client.
Rose would like to continue her studies in fashion and perhaps do her master's in sustainable fashion development in the near future.
Rose always like to say : "As long as I keep moving and creating with my head and my heart, my way of making this world a better place, keeps me alive".
