The Style Awards recognizes the leading men and women in fashion, business, and the arts and honors them for their extraordinary accomplishments.
Join us for the Style Awards Friday, August 19, 2016, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Vote HERE!
ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR
Tamiah Bridgett – Diversamē
Tamiah Bridgett is a lifelong resident of Pittsburgh, PA. She is a proud graduate of the Pittsburgh Public School system. She received her B.A. from Carlow University and her MSW from the University of Pittsburgh. She studied to become a manicurist while in undergraduate school and graduated from Pittsburgh’s famed Pittsburgh Beauty Academy with outstanding achievement. She worked as a manicurist to supplement her income for the duration of her years as a post-secondary and graduate student.
Tamiah worked as a licensed psychiatric social worker for several years and in her spare time, enjoyed assisting women with learning to style and love their natural hair. It was from these interactions that It’s a Natural Thang was born. It’s a Natural Thang quickly became Pittsburgh’s premiere natural hair meetup group. In 2012, Tamiah returned to cosmetology school full time and was licensed as a Cosmetology Instructor in the Summer of 2013.
In 2015, Tamiah became founder and CEO of Diversamē Inc. Diversamē Inc. is a start-up company that engineers hair tools for the curly continuum. Afro textured hair has been long ignored in the world of hair tooling. Diversamē Inc. Is here to answer the call of the multitude of people with highly textured hair who have grown frustrated with a lack of quality tools for their hair. The tools engineered by Diversamē Inc. will provide style confidence and ease. The first tool of the brand, the Diversamē Drying Tool is already creating a buzz and has a 100% tester satisfaction rate!
Gina Vensel – Easy Street Promotions
Gina Vensel is a native to Pittsburgh, a working mother, and social activist. As a humanist and entrepreneur, Gina finds it essential to partner with clients and community groups that promote positive values, progressive ideals, social responsibility and eco-consciousness. This has led to her involvement in many productive Pittsburgh projects, such as becoming TEDxPittsburgh’s Marketing Lead and the Event Organizer of Pittsburgh Earth Day 2015 and 2016.
Easy Street has coordinated events like Tree Pittsburgh’s Arbor Aid and worked on fundraisers and community initiatives such as Community Kitchen Pittsburgh’s Project Lunch Tray, Jergel’s Merging Arts Series, and the Pittsburgh Aviation Animal Rescue Team’s Dog Days of Summer Fundraiser happening this August.
Gina’s company is also on the Millcraft Investments marketing team and works alongside local companies including Samuel Baron Clothiers, City Fresh Pasta, Chromos Eyewear, Revel + Roost and Full Pint Brewing.
Most recently Easy Street is working on the inaugural Pour at the Park to benefit the Allegheny County Parks Foundation, the grand opening of artist preferred lofts at the newly renovated Brew House in the South Side, and Tree Pittsburgh’s Root Ball fundraiser at Fairmont Pittsburgh this Fall. Keep posted with Easy Street by visiting EasyStreetPgh.com and following Easy Street Promotions Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
Gina Mazzotta – Gina Mazzotta Millinery
American milliner, Gina Mazzotta creates original, hand-made custom hats for women, men and children. The brand was founded in 2012, when, after recognizing a lack of stylish, contemporary hat options, Gina was inspired to create her own. She studied with milliner, Amy Hamilton and fell in love with the millinery process. Drawing from her background in window design, she integrates runway fashion with chic, custom every day accessories in her explorative and innovative take on traditional hat forms. Based in Pittsburgh, PA, Gina Mazzotta Millinery can be found at trunk shows and events in cities throughout the U.S.
LUXE Creative
LUXE Creative is a full-service design studio based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, working in the worlds of luxury events, the arts, fashion, marketing + lifestyle design. The world of LUXE Creative is built with a key point of difference—a complete and relentless pursuit of excellence. Our vision is to provide the highest level of satisfaction to our partners while producing experiences that are both original and inspired. The basis for our experiences is created at the intersection of art, design and technology. Whether we are producing a city-wide music festival, a corporate event, nonprofit gala or luxury wedding, we deliver a final product that is poured over with passion and uninhibited design. To learn more, visit LUXECompanies.com.
Dr. Shellie Hipsky – Empowering & Inspiring Lives
Dr. Shellie Hipsky inspires, educates, and empowers! Dr. Shellie is the Executive Director of the new non-profit 501 (c) (3) the Global Sisterhood which guides and supports women and girls towards their dreams and goals. She earned “Entrepreneur of the Year in Inspiration and Empowerment”, “Best Woman in Business”, and “VIP Woman of the Year” for her Inspiring Lives, LLC. The latest of her 10 published books, the internationally best selling Common Threads trilogy, provides Inspiration, Empowerment, and Balance based on 100 amazing interviews from her Empowering Women Radio. Now she is delighted to be the new Editor-in-Chief of Inspiring Lives Magazine!
Sophia Berman – Truust Lingerie
Trusst is a team of women – engineers and designers – who have been working around the clock to design and build a new system of bra support, catered towards larger busted women. In the fall of 2014, we entered AlphaLab Gear, a nationally ranked hardware accelerator in Pittsburgh, PA. We removed underwire from the equation, bought a 3D printer, and started prototyping. After about 300 prototypes, we found our answer. Our new design supports the weight of your bust from underneath, removing the burden on your shoulder straps and refocusing the support around the core of your body where your strongest muscles are. In it’s simplest form, we’ve developed a system (a truss – get it?) that creates lift. We’ve had hundreds of women test and try out our new system and we’re getting rave reviews.
Darieth Chisolm – Hustle & Heart TV
Darieth Chisolm is an Emmy Award Winning television personality, former NBC News Anchor, entrepreneur, author, speaker and business coach. Darieth recently celebrated becoming one of the Top 10 Trailblazer in Communications by Walker’s Legacy. Her online video podcast show, Hustle & Heart TV was a Top 10 Finalist for the 2015 Podcast Awards for Best Video Podcast, and was ranked #1 on iTunes for over two months with subscribers and viewers in several different countries. Darieth is also a Visibility and Media Specialist who coaches women to become confident and outrageously successful, conveying their brand, message and mission to the world through various online media platforms. In her book, HUSTLE: Why Now is the Time to Unleash your Passion Darieth features a strong collection of powerful and motivating stories to help her readers move into inspired action and accomplish their goals and dreams. Darieth spent 25 years as a television news anchor at WPXI in Pittsburgh, where she was the trusted authority for the hundreds of thousands every night at 10PM and 11pm. In addition to her media experience, Darieth became a very successful network marketer, becoming the 54th highest paid distributor with It Works Global, a network marketing company with over 70 thousand representatives.
Nicole Manns – Nikki’s Magic Wand
In 1982 Nikki Narvaez’s mother, Brenda, died of Leukemia. Brenda was 33. Nikki was 10. At the time of her death, Brenda worked for two brothers, Harvey and Chuck Steinberg, as a secretary of their family owned moving company, Quaker Moving and Storage. Instead of canceling the retirement savings fund Brenda had been contributing to, Harvey and Chuck maintained it for seven years until it was time for Nikki to go to college. Shortly before she was ready to make the journey across the state to attend the University of Pittsburgh, the Steinberg brothers took up a collection from their then current employees and raised $1500 additional dollars. They presented Nikki with the $1500 dollars and the $30,000 dollars from her mother’s preserved retirement fund to pay for her tuition and sent Nikki off to college where she would meet her “second” Brenda.
Twenty one years ago, I (Brenda, affectionately known as “Bre”) moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to Pittsburgh, PA to go to college. One afternoon, two weeks after my arrival, while riding the city bus (and feeling very lost and uncertain as to whether this bus would take me back to my dorm or to Alaska) I noticed a girl, whom I had met only once before, standing at the bus stop. She looked in through the bus window and must have seen my very concerned face because she tugged her boyfriend onto the bus with her and sat down next to me. I’m still not sure if she needed to get on that bus or if she was so concerned about me that she simply got on the bus with me. At any rate, she sat down next to me and said, “I’ll ride with you until we get back to campus to make sure you get off at the right place”. That day, my best friend, Nikki, walked into my life. Still today, she “rides” with me even though we are cities apart. Me in Atlanta and she in Pittsburgh. She is my confidant, my court jester and my angel. Some years ago she and I were on the phone while driving (which we know is bad – but what do you do when your best friend lives 800 miles away?) and she said; “I am so tired of not being able to get all of this damned lip gloss out of the tube. I have to throw it away before I ever finish it. I should invent something to get this out”. I said; “You should and it’s called, Nikki’s Magic Wand”. That day, Nikki’s Magic Wand was born and we’ve been breathing life into it ever since.
Nate Mitchell – The Natural Choice
The Style Awards recognizes the leading men and women in fashion, business, and the arts and honors them for their extraordinary accomplishments.
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