From all of us here at Charlene Sauerman Couture, we'd like to say "Congratulations, Tatum! " 

Charlene Sauerman designed 3 elegant evening dresses for the Miss South Africa pageant and celebrated the success of the event with an elegant photo shoot.

For those of you who could not join us at "Bear to be Vogue", you most certainly missed out on the social highlight of 2008!

Held at the Market Hall at Grand West, this high profile fashion event combined a formal dinner, wine sponsored by prestigeous wine estates, an exclusive auction by Stef Olivier from Western Cape Auctioneers, and an incredible fashion show produced by Planet Productions. 

"Bear to be Vogue" incorporated the very best from Charlene Sauerman, Kobus Dippenaar, Hendrik Vermeulen, Jay from Jagadi, Fabiani, Carducci and Dagmar Jungbauer.  A special thanks to Charlene for bringing all these top designers on board for this show!

Miss SA, Tansey Coetzee is on her way to compete in Miss Universe Competition. For her one month stay in Vietnam, Miss South Africa 2007, Tansey Coetzee requires an extensive wardrobe. Several acclaimed South African fashion designers have created evening gowns and suits becoming of a beauty queen.

Charlene Sauerman has designed two evening dresses for Tansey to take to the Miss Universe Competition. With more than 16 years experience in the couture industry, Charlene has become one of South Africa’s most popular designers based in Cape Town. Charlene has a passion and distinguishing flair for designing exclusive evening gowns, creating the gown to suit the individual. With her designs she has magically captured Tansey’s inimitable spirit.

Charlene’s has designed a black evening gown for Tansey’s visit to the Vietnamese President’s Dinner and a bright fuchsia pink dress for the Official Welcome Dinner.

“I wanted Tansey’s gowns to express her tangible energy and accentuate her exotic look!   I was inspired by her beautiful body, skin tone and her lovely personality,” says Charlene.

The colours and beading compliment her skin, and the silk fabric and crystal adornments are fit for a beauty queen.  Rich beading was used to create a look that would make her stand out from the rest; an African queen destined to influence the entire Universe!

Gorgeous! Exquisite! Well executed and perfectly fitted to show off Minki’s best features! A classic dress with playful surprises! Spot on! These are some of the comments reported in the media by some of the most respected fashion experts, including Gert van de Merwe, Heather Parker and Kobus Dippenaar on Minki van der Westhuizen’s wedding dress.

Minki married Stellenbosch businessman, Constant Visser, on 29 September 2007 in a Charlene Sauerman creation. Charlene also designed all the other dresses for the bride’s maids, flower girls, Minki’s mother, Carien’s, and even her grandmother, Dinah's special outfit for the event. “Charlene designs all my outfits for glamour events, so I didn’t even think twice of asking Charlene to design my dream wedding gown,” says the beaming newly wed.

“Designing Minki’s dress was very special for me, because it flows out of a long relationship starting when I made her Matric dance dress and since then dressing her for social events.” says Charlene.

The dress is a combination of simplistic lines with a surprise element of luxurious frills cascading from side godet inserts in true couture style. Minki wanted a traditional train and a long veil. The fabrics used are Duchess satin and corded Spanish lace together with guipure lace edging imported from New York. Charlene used 3 000 crystals including Swarovski, to give the dress a “diamond white” colour. “Because Minki loves diamonds, I used crystals to make it luxurious and give it a feeling of royalty,” explains Charlene.

Minki endorses Charlene’s dresses locally and internationally. “I love Charlene’s designs, they are absolutely stunning. You feel like a princess wearing her dresses and she understands and appreciates a women’s body, tailoring her designs to accentuate your greatest assets to make your figure look perfect,” says Minki.

Being a model, she can wear anything and look beautiful, but for her wedding Charlene wanted the dress to be an enhancement of the real Minki, an extension of her inner beauty. Only the best would do, because she is such a special person.

The touch of black hidden in the pettitcoat lent a mysterious contrast to the classic vintage design and added a surprise element still talked about. “I love my dress, it’s everything I ever dreamt of; different, stylish and elegant!,” Minki comments.

The overall inspiration for the design and colours of the various dresses for the event was jewels - in keep with Minki’s “diamond” dress, Carien’s “sapphire”, the bride’s maids’ “onyx” and flower girls’ “rubies” dresses.

“Charlene’s creativity, patience, dedication and passion have no limits, “ says Minki’s mother, Carien.

Charlene says working with Carien was only a pleasure. “With so much beauty, style and grace it was not difficult to create the dress. It was also wonderful to experience the loving inter-action between Minki and her mother, as well as between Carien and Ouma Dinah.

Making Minki’s dress was a team effort with seven ladies working on it and taking approximately 400 hours to complete. “Congratulations and well done to the whole team at Charlene Sauerman Couture for the superb quality and their exceptional expertise. Each dress was an extraordinary work of art and Minki’s dress …. the master piece of them all!”, says Carien and proud mother of the bride.