Andeline WIeland, owner and creator of the Snow White Project, has been collecting dresses for her company since 2012. PHOTO: Facebook.
What started as the aftermath of winning Miss Teen Namibia evolved into a special Stellenbosch-based project helping the community; one pretty dress at a time.
The creator and owner of The Snow White Project, Andeline Wieland (24), launched her dress hiring company back in 2012 and it has grown considerably since then.
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ABOVE: Andeline Wieland loves making people feel beautiful and offers dress hire as well as hair and make-up services.
“After the Miss Teen pageant, I was left with a bunch of dresses that I wasn’t going to wear again,” the young philanthropist explained, “so I thought why not offer these dresses for girls who cannot afford to buy expensive new dresses?”
However, The Snow White Project does more than make beautiful dresses more accessible. It is also a charity organisation that has raised over R50 000 which has been invested in local community projects.
“Each year after we have covered all our costs like repairs and dry cleaning, we pick a charity to donate the leftover money,” Wieland explained.
“We would find out what they need and then go out and buy supplies which we then donate to the charities directly.”
Local projects that Wieland has worked with include the Santa Shoebox Project, the Durbanville Children’s Home and the Western Cape fire brigade among others.
The Snow White Project offers over 180 unique dresses to hire at affordable prices which consist of a variety of sizes, lengths and styles. “It is really important to me that we cater for everyone because I want to make feeling beautiful a reality for every body type,” she said.
The large collection of dresses that Wieland has accumulated has been mostly through dress donations but she has recently also been buying new dresses to increase the different options even further.
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ABOVE: The Snow White Project’s social media profiles showcases some of the beautiful dresses worn by clients.
“The Snow White Project is a way of assisting the local community as much as possible through something that I personally love, I think that is why it has worked so well so far,” the charismatic redhead said.
She hopes to continue expanding her business and is already planning a special project for 2020.
“I want to team up with local seamstresses or anyone who likes to DIY clothes to make little princess-dresses out of old dresses that are damaged or too aged which we then want to donate to little girls in hospitals with serious illnesses so that they can have something beautiful that is made especially for them,” she explained excitedly.
Wieland also hopes to one day have stores of her own in Stellenbosch and Khayelitsha to reach more girls who need affordable gowns, whether it be for a matric dance or a house dance.
Wieland is currently completing her diploma in marketing at Stellenbosch University (SU). She completed her BA Drama and journalism honour’s degrees at SU as well. PHOTO: Facebook