YOUNG fashion designer, Zane Ngwenya has been awarded the Daphne Strutt Prize 2017. The 3rd year DUT Fashion Design student was presented with her prize at the South African National Society (SANS) meeting on Tuesday, 11 April.
Myra Boyes (SANS treasurer) presented the award, a book by Daphne Strutt, to Zane who was accompanied by her mother, Jabu Ngwenya, and DUT Head of Fashion Design, Sunthra Moodley.
In her acceptance speech, Zane said: “As a young designer, it’s great to make clothes that remind us about our humanity.”
Daphne Strutt wrote and illustrated a vast historical survey of the clothing fashions that have been adopted in South Africa – from the time of the early Dutch settlers in the 17th century until the end of the 19th century.
During the writing of the book the author drew upon a varied and very rich collection of sources: she visited most of the museums, galleries and archives in South Africa; she drew or photographed period apparel, old specimens and paintings, and she ransacked the rewarding treasures of family photo-albums and domestic records. What is revealed is that South Africa has a remarkably rich collection of the clothing of its pioneers.
Daphne Strutt served as curator of the Local History Museum in Durban. She studied History of Fashion and Costume Design at the Johannesburg Art School under the late Phyllis Gardner, then joined the staff of the Africana Museum in that city, and eventually became custodian of the excellent collection of historical costume.
In 1953 she was appointed curator of the then new Natal Settlers Old House Museum in Durban, which housed a small but fine collection of settler dress, Over the years this collection has grown to be one of the most important in South Africa, and in 1965 it was moved to form a part of the Local History Museum in the Old Court House.
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