It’s a long way from the little dorp of Koster to the Hollywood hangouts of the Kardashians, the First Family of Reality TV. But for Gert Johan Coetzee, it’s a journey that has taken him from a starry-eyed dream to everyday reality, and it all began with a pledge to his mom. He told her he wanted to be a fashion designer: “Not just a normal one, but the biggest one in the world.”
That scale of ambition was matched by a natural talent for working with fabric, and he was still a high school teenager when he started a sewing business, designing and making matric-dance outfits in his North West farming town.
He dropped out of formal schooling, learned everything he needed to know at home, and went on to study fashion design in Klerksdorp. His flair for glamorous red-carpet creations put him in a class of his own, and with a string of awards to his name, he earned his first big break by designing a dazzling July outfit for the TV presenter, Sandy Ngema.
Since then, with a studio in Linden, Johannesburg, Gert has built up a portfolio of celebrity clients that ranges from Lira to Bonang to Miss Universe to Thuli Madonsela to Kourtney of Kardashian fame. He describes his design style as “simple, but dramatic”, a mix of yin and yang that plays on understatement rather than over-the-top spectacle.
Gert sat down with Ruda to chat about change, dreams, learning to design your own destiny, and the joys of married life in Linden.
Transcript:
R: Hello, and a very warm welcome to another session of the Change Exchange, where my guest today is a creator of beautiful things – Gert-Johan Coetzee.
G: Hello.
R: He dresses people like you wouldn’t believe, starting with one of the Kardashians … Kourtney, heh?
G: Yes.
R: And give me another few famous names?
G: Well, we’ve been so blessed, with worked with Kristin Cavallari, we’ve worked with Kelly Rowland, Lupita … we’ve worked with really like the A-list of Hollywood. I just love how my life has fallen in into place because it’s always been such a big dream.
R: And locally?
G: Locally we have the honour of working with Bonang Matheba, Minnie Dlamini, Lira … some really iconic women … Thuli Madonsela … That’s what I thrive for, to work with really powerful women that inspire change.
R: But you were born in Koster? Koster, for those of you who do not know, is this big and it’s kind of that side of Magaliesburg. It’s deep Platteland. At age of about six you say to your mother you’re going to be a famous designer?
G: I always wanted to be a famous designer. We grew up in Koster, on a farm, eventually moved to the town, which is quite small but it’s like one street where all the shops are and then all the house. So that was nice, to grow up almost a little bit more protected than in the city, but that was the advantage of that. And then I left school to start home schooling.
R: Sorry, but how did you know that there was such a thing as a fashion designer?
G: I didn’t know what it was. I first thought it was a seamstress. I wanted to be … I wanted to make wedding dresses, that’s what I wanted to do. And then through the years that passed I was like wow, there’s a whole fashion world and people did this for a living and they are called fashion designers and that is when I told my mom, “Mom, I’m going to be one of those guys and a famous one. I just don’t want to be a normal one, I want to be the biggest one in the world.
R: The home schooling. How did that happen?
G: That is just because of all the curricular activities – I hope that’s the proper English – I was doing sewing class, I was doing dance class, all these things and they kind of like mix into my school time, so we decided let me do things on my own pace. So we started home schooling, it was great because you can literally do all your work by 10 o’clock and at 10 o’clock you were done, and then I could start sewing. By the time I was about 15, 14, I already had a little sewing business doing matric dance dresses for girls in Koster and for small clients, friends and parents and things like that.
R: How did your parents react … Because this is not an average Afrikaans guy … Especially almost 30 years ago?
G: Ja. I always had a knack for this, so at school my pencils was my first model … So I used to dress it in little tissue paper gowns and then at home my sister’s dolls was my victims, and I think at some point when I was about six, my parents realised that if they were not going to buy me a sewing machine and some fabric, I’m going to cut up a curtain! And that is when they sent me to the fabric shop to go and buy some fabric. So they always kind of supported this because it was so unusual they wanted to see what happens, it’s like a little experiment. Let’s give it fabric and see where it goes. So by the time I was 16 I felt that I was wasting my time at school because I was then already running a business and at that point I won every competition that I could for my age and even like till matric level. So it was clear I was going to be a fashion designer and I dropped out of school and went to North West School of Design in Klerksdorp and asked them will they take me with only standard 8, and they said let’s try this and that’s where it started.
R: And could they teach you something?
G: They taught me everything that I know. First they said I have to pass this test, to get 80% on this test and then they could take me, so I passed that test and then …
R: What did it entail?
G: Partly creative test, do a mental test to see if mentally I would be able to keep up with 18-year-olds, and they really supported me and really polished me into what I am today.
R: And then at … What was it? 17 years old, you caught the eye of Sandy Ngema and you dressed her for the July that year. What was it like to see your designs on television for the first time?
G: Ja, that was a real mind-blow because meeting Sandy, I met her at a competition that I won, was called the Vukani Awards. And the award is prestigious and known to launch designers into the industry, so I won that and it did so good for me, but at the Awards then I met Sandy and Sandy then said she needed a design for Strictly Come Dancing and she said pitch it at the SABC, and I did and she phoned me and said, “You got the job, Gert” and that really changed …
R: At the ripe old age of 17?
G: I was about 19. So it was a process – it didn’t happen overnight. And then as I started dressing Sandy, the media almost like made her the it-girl and it really started focusing on her and why she was looking so different. I must say Sandy is such a beautiful woman, she pulls clothes off so well, so I think that had a lot to do with it, and it gave me a lot of media attention and slowly grew me into a known fashion designer.
R: But as I say, can you remember the first time that you saw a design of yours on national television?
G; How that went is I was at Strictly every night, and I would wait until the show goes live, because it’s a live show, and then I’ll text everyone and say “She’s wearing the dress! She’s wearing the dress!” and I would first wait for it to go live for it to be true, but it’s an experience that you can’t explain, it’s your dreams are coming true. It’s like when you see something that you’ve wanted for so long happen and it happens to you, it is a … You can’t describe that experience. But I guess I love days like that, so I always strive to have those amazing Eureka days where you do something new that you’ve always wanted to do.
R: And you started a business with … Who was your partner?
G: Uyanda Mbuli.
R: Uyanda Mbuli. Diamond Face Couture? Did you know already then, but it sounds as if you did, that fashion is a business and that you would also have to be a business man, you can’t just do the creative stuff?
G: To be honest, I didn’t know by then how important the business stuff was, for me, I just wanted to be a known designer. We were into Diamond Face Couture, I just loved how everything that I made, was seen everywhere. It was not just showing my parents anymore, it was, the whole country saw it. And that was quite a kick for me. In the beginning that is kind of … The payment that I got out of it was job satisfaction, and it was great. Uyanda taught me a lot, I learned a lot from her. It was sad when we closed the business, but it was a good thing for me.
R: Why did that come to an end?
G: I think, the first business lesson I learned was the only ship that doesn’t sail, is a partnership. And it’s tricky, two very creative people working together and I was about 21, 20 then and it was just really so much happening. I think you’re not just running a business and making clothes, you’re also dealing with the media and you don’t understand the whole concept of what this is, you just think that’s the way life is. So it was difficult for me, and it was sad when it closed, but it launched Gert-Johan Coetzee and that was great. But that was such a hard, but a good lesson that I learned.
R: But to start Gert-Johan Coetzee, PTY LTD, at 22? Was it easier because you were so young and in a certain sense didn’t have so much to lose?
G: See, how this started was I had staff to pay. I had six staff to pay and I had no money, I had R400 and I had five weeks at least at the studio so I was like really rock bottom. So I was like, guys, let’s start making stuff. And the staff was so great and were really supportive and we started making stuff and it started selling, so as soon as they started making stuff and we were putting it out there I got through the first week, and the second week and the third week and we kind of grew it together like that. I still have some of that staff that work for me, they’re still with me today. And what is nice is they see how easy life is today, but some of them is there to tell the story to the new staff that we didn’t magically have this sweatshop that makes this beautiful clothes! Gert was the sweatshop. So it was a very great growth – it happened very gradually.
R: How did you do the marketing? Because that’s the big thing. You can make beautiful things, but if there’s no-one buying it?
G: I’ve always been lucky that media was interested in what I make. So that was always … celebrities wanted to wear it. They liked my design style, which is ironic because when I started fashion, I wanted to dress Afrikaans stars, because that was what I knew. I wanted to dress all the South African singers, but they never thought my stuff was beautiful. So here I am, in an English, more like and African English … And they finally think my stuff is beautiful!
R: Why? What did you do that doesn’t really gel with the Afrikaans background?
G: I don’t know! I don’t know what it is?
R: You’re too flamboyant?
G: I think my stuff is perhaps too simple, because I have a very simple, but dramatic design style. A cool mix, the ying and yang of design. I always say the first lesson of design is Don’t. Really underplay. And I think that is what I liked. I think people didn’t understand why I didn’t want to put feathers here and there?
R: And the partnerships? Both in the beginning as business partners, but also with your clients was black, African women. And you’re a young Afrikaans white kid?
G: I think that’s also what made the story strange, was that that was the relationship. That I’m Afrikaans, white Afrikaans, and my clientele is black diamonds. So that I think in its own was a story to tell, but I’ve been blessed that from day one I have just the right types of things that happened for the right people to wear the clothes. You get maximum exposure for people to see what I can. And I mean, dressing a Kardashian didn’t hurt.
R: Sure. But I want to go back … You now make it sound very easy. But that interaction between you and Sandy Ngema, for example, when you were still much younger. Your English was probably not as good as it is now. And how did that relationship work?
G: She … Sandy was a real fashionista and she really knew what she wanted. So it was … I remember … I had to go to her house to fit her there, and it was a constant driving from when I met Sandy for the first time, I was still based in Klerksdorp. So constantly driving … But Sandy called me her little Versace, so she was the biggest mouthpiece you can find. And I find that when people listen because Sandy is such an influential woman, and people really respect her opinion of things, if she says the next Versace, people are going to believe her. So I think her endorsement of me really helped.
R: It must have been amazing when she said that for the first time, to you?
G: Yes, and the great thing is that she never said it to me, she talked to other people so it kind of got to me that way. And I think that’s sometimes the biggest compliment, when someone says something great about you behind your back. That’s the best compliment.
R: How did the Kardashian link, or was there something before that in Hollywood?
G: So, I … The Kardashians were coming … Brutal Fruit, the Alcopop, brought them over and I heard that they were here, and then somebody phoned me and said: “Listen Gert, the Kardashians is here. Why don’t you make them a dress? I’ll give it to them, I’m going to have dinner with them.” And I made the dress, and … They took it out of the box and they cannot help it, and they left with it. And afterwards I heard that Kim’s dress was a little bit too small, so she gave it to Kourtney and then Kourtney wore it to the People’s Choice Awards. And that was the day before Fibre Optics and Fast Internet, so I was on Twitter and I got a tweet the morning … I remember it was about 04:00 in the morning and somebody said: “Gert, I think Kourtney is wearing your dress at the People’s Choice Awards!” And I hit the image and it loaded so slowly! And eventually, when I saw it, I just screamed and woke up the whole house and we all celebrated. It was such a great day! And I remember that day was such a whirlwind of interviews and media because I don’t think anybody has ever done anything like that at that point, and the Kardashians was so popular. And that night at the People’s Choice Awards they just won the award for the most popular series or something. So it was a great night, it was like everything coming together at one point, and I think that was kind of my story and my luck. I am an extremely lucky person, and there’s this way in my life of not just one good thing happening, but like an unfolding of events that all come down to one moment and then that moment explodes. And I had that a couple of times in my life where it really just helped when we needed it the most.
R: But I also have this philosophy that if you close your hand like that you can hold very little. If the hand is open, you can hold a lot, and you can accept more.
G; That is so beautiful, ja. And I …
R: That you are open to whatever happens and whoever crosses your path.
G: See, my motto is that opportunities present themselves every day, you just have to want to see them and then grab them. Because many people don’t want to see opportunities, because it looks like work …
R: Or they’re afraid of Change. This program is focused on Change and it sounds as if you’re ready for whatever?
G: Ja, really. And the funny thing about Change is it’s going to happen whether you’re ready for it, or not. It’s amazing sometimes, if you look at friends and family and people in the media, they would be going towards one thing forever and then all of a sudden it will get ripped from them and life goes in such a better direction, but that initial Change is sometimes not as easy and it’s scary.
R: Wrenching, ja. And you made another decision, and that is to use your work for a social good. And the first thing you did was to partner with Thando Hopa, who has albinism. How did that decision come about?
G: So it came across, I was doing a collection and it just wouldn’t come together. I needed like something. I was walking in Cresta Shopping Centre and I remember seeing this angel walking past me, it was like a beam of light. And I looked around … Actually, I was with my friend and said just a minute and I ran after her and she’s like: “I don’t model. I get asked often and I don’t do this.” And I was like: “Please call me, I promise you – I’m legit.” And about three days later she texted me and said: “I’m in.” And then at that time …
R: Didn’t she do any modelling?
G: She’s a prosecutor. She’s a very serious prosecutor, so she didn’t want to do any of that. And then …
R: Why did she agree?
G: She said she felt that I was different than the other people and that we could do something together. And at our first shoot, I call it a Test Tube … It’s just basically up the studio with a little mik en druk and we just wanted to see if she can relate on camera and getting to know Thando and hearing her struggles growing up and how she wished she had a role model like herself, inspired me and I was like “Wow, I need to use this platform to do better”. And I was off to Canada to go show my collection there and I remember coming out on the ramp and seeing all the media and it was like … It is such a waste that we’re using all this power to sell clothes. We should use it for something else as well. And I came back to South Africa and built my campaign around Thando and raising awareness for albinism, because around Africa there are so many muti murders, and it’s not just that. People don’t know what beauty is, and I love how the fashion industry is now challenging what beauty is, and back then it was a hard decision to use a different model for a campaign. But it worked out well and we saw the reaction and what it had and then the next year we tried to raise awareness for HIV because I felt that people kind of forget what the red ribbon stands for, it doesn’t register anymore. So I almost redesigned the virus, we looked at it through a microscope and I printed what I saw onto clothes, so that when people wear the clothes, it’s a conversation piece.
R: What year was this?
G: This was about 2013, 2014 when we had that collection …
R: There was really a kind of Aids fatigue. People were very bored with it.
G: I speak under correction …
R: Five, six years.
G: So it was a really great collection that I think brought the message across, so now we really try and do something like that. But I don’t go and find things. It needs to be something that’s happening in my life and affecting my life at that moment and that is how these inspirations happens. With the HIV collection I had a staff member who came to me and said she’s positive and we had to then educate myself and see how work happens now, how do we protect everybody from it and I educated all my staff on that and I think without making it about her, I think she felt good that she could educate the whole company about HIV.
R: So it’s personal?
G: It’s personal. It’s personal things like that, like the water crisis, all these things that happen in the world. That you can’t change everything, but you can help to change something. I had a great partnership with Shout … For Save South Africa where we created a collection that simulated armour for protection and we dedicate the collection to female victims of violence and it’s really to highlight those causes because I feel if you give anything energy, you can help it.
R: And you say your message is “Take Charge of Yourself”. What do you mean by that?
G: I think to change something, you first have to change yourself and really bring it out from a good positive, feeling place. I think if we just did something for publicity, it would have never became as big as it did. If you do something for the right reasons, that people can see is the right reason … Then everybody wants to be a part of it.
R: What’s next?
G: What’s next? We’re currently working on our next collection for SA Fashion Week. That’s very exciting, we’re going to do it very different this year, it’s going to be so interesting. I’m going to a big South African retailer, it’s very exciting. I always wanted to be in their stores. So that’s going to be great. And then we’re just really pushing the envelope of fashion. I’m about to leave for New York, I’m very excited to be invited by [inaudible] … Vogue calls him the best pattern maker in the world, Duro, to go and learn from him for a few weeks, so I think that’s going to be exciting and I can’t wait to bring back that knowledge back to South Africa and show the rest of the world what we can do.
R: How did that happen? That you got in there?
G: As a major hook-up, I’m the biggest fan of the director of SA Fashion Week, Lucilla Booyzen, and she is absolutely the mother of fashion in this country, and it was a big hook-up, but she was the dating agency so I’m very grateful for her for doing that.
R: And talking about the dating agency, moving on to your personal life. Where did you and Vicky meet? When did you know that he was the one?
G: Well, I met Vicky 12 years ago in Klerksdorp when I studied there. And I remember I met him and we moved in the next day and we’ve been together for 12 years and been married for three and it was the first public gay marriage in South Africa, so that had its own interesting things, but I’m happy to have done it that way because now you see more and more people coming out and doing it so publicly. So life is great and we are renovating our home and we’ve been renovating it for the last two years, so that’s kind of been keeping us busy since the wedding, but if I can give anybody advice, don’t plan a wedding and then start renovating, because that’s what the whole wedding … So it was amazing, we’re really lucky. And that’s also the important thing, it’s like … Having a support structure. Vicky has been there since day one of … Because we met when I was a first year, studying. And we’ve been together through this whole process, pushing and developing.
R: You’re also business partners?
G: Also business partners. So I think if it wasn’t for Vicky, many of this wouldn’t be possible because when the one can’t anymore, the other one can. So it’s like a marriage, as well. There’s always somebody at some point that’s kind of leading, and you kind of take turns to do that.
R: So what makes the relationship work?
G: I think listening to each other, having respect for each other and relationships are hard, you have to work at it every day. It’s not an easy thing, it is a job that you have to re-every day. It’s not like a job, it’s more like a plant that you have to water every day. So I think that is the key of a relationship and really making sure that you spend time with each other. And my best word of advice, and I can’t remember from where I got it, is that people tend to give the best versions of themselves to strangers. Where we, our promise to each other is that our best versions of each other we’re giving to each other when we have that moment. So, sometimes when I’m quiet, guys, I’m just saving myself.
R: Why did you decide to take the step to get married?
G: Marriage is great. I don’t know … We always wanted to get married, I think also because if you’re together for so long and you’re really committed to that level, you really want to make it forever public and celebrate it. So that was the main reason, and it was a time when gay marriage was just legalised and then we got engaged and we thought let’s do this, because now we can and I think the more energy you give something the more people will do it, so and the more normal it will become, and why we wanted it so public is to show that it’s normal. I think people sometimes have the perception of what gay marriage is, but we thought it’d be great to have broken that perception, show that it’s normal. My mom’s normal, my dad’s normal, his parents are normal. We live in a normal house, we’ve got cats and dogs and nobody wears dresses.
R: And how did you plan the ceremony? Because there’s no template. You don’t have to follow any pattern?
G: That is the funniest thing. Especially the television show that was covering the wedding, because they’re known for covering weddings and they found that “okay, now it’s the first dance” and “now it’s the first kiss” but nobody knew. So we kind of just winged it – we knew what we didn’t want to do, and we didn’t want any awkward moments and that was the brief to everybody, and we kind of just created a big party, and it was so lovely, because our five best friends were there and each of them gave us a wish, and that was how we got married. And that was the ceremony and it was so beautiful and we had all our friends and family there and it was over a weekend.
R: And your mom walked you down the aisle. Tell me about her, about that decision?
G: So we thought our moms should walk us down the aisle, I think my mom is really still today she’s so supportive and she’s such a special part in our lives that I really wish that everybody in their lives can experience like I have growing up. And Vicky’s mom is just such a wonderful, fun person and ironically, Vicky’s mom and my mom is best friends, over this 12 years they’ve really matured into this friendship where they’re constantly texting each other and talking on the phone and they know more about what’s happening in our lives than we tell them, so I don’t know how they find that out, but … I think a mother’s love is something you can’t describe, and I think especially for a man you’re much closer to your mother normally and it was a great honour for her to walk me down and for Vicky’s mom to walk him down and we wanted to have that part of the tradition, but the rest of the wedding was not traditional at all.
R: What about your relationship to your dad?
G: My dad is great. I think … My whole family is like little cheerleaders. Like: “Go, gay brother! Go!” So it’s pretty much like that. My dad’s amazing. I think initially, I came out, I was gay at a very young age. I think initially that was a shock, but it was never like the horror stories that you hear from other people. It was quite managed well and I think now many people ask my parents for advice in our little town when there’s issues like this. My mom and dad has been giving some advice and I think they’re very accepting and very supportive and very proud, and I think my dad has always been so proud and he’s so funny and loveable and I’m very, very lucky with parents. And even Vicky and I think that’s also because our parents have such great relationships before us … I think that’s also why we have such a strong relationship.
R: Ja, and the example of a marriage that lasts?
G: Ja, that’s very true. To show how things get dealt with as well. Because if you’re young – especially if you’re young – and you don’t know how to handle the emotions, it’s difficult and it’s nice to have a parent there, a frame of reference that you can go back and even when we have kids, I think I see now more how my mom reacts to things that I tell her, like kind of checking it in my brain, remember to do that with my children, because it’s like she’s hitting all the right notes with me. So I think my parents are great and I’m so blessed that they are so supportive of me.
R: Sjoe, I hope my boy says that about me! This home that you’re renovating. What made you choose it? How did you buy it in the first place?
G; So we bought it about four years ago just before we got married, we bought it together and then …
R: What sold it to you? Trees? Light?
G: No, Vicky wants big. Vicky is nature and I’m not so much nature and he wants his hippie corner and he’s so exactly the opposite of me that I’m always suits and ties and he’s all like palazzo pants and t-shirts and he wanted big, open spaces. So we looked for that property and the biggest property we could find close to everything was in Linden and it’s quite big and lots of trees and lots of rooms and the first thing that we got when we started renovating was we made a seven bedroom house into a two bedroom house. And we have all these open spaces and it’s lovely. And renovating together, doing a project together as a couple is also a bit of a relationship builder, because …
R: Or breaker!
G; Or breaker, but making all those decisions together has been fun. And we bought the house from this old Belgian guy that spoke Flemish and it almost sounded like Afrikaans and he just told us all these stories from Belgium and he had such great furniture because he was retiring that we could buy from him and he just told us how he pulled it through the mud to get it on a ship to South Africa and he just had so many stories so all our furniture have these great stories that we bought from this guy and we really have some great antiques and that’s just lovely.
R: And is there something that you take with you that maybe even as a teenager that you took with you when you moved? Maybe a picture, whatever?
G: You know, Vicky is quite a sentimental person, so he has many things – childhood toys that I framed for him as gifts and things like that, but I have this …
R: You travel lightly?
G: I travel lightly. I have this bag from my grandmother – it’s like this little metal bag, and that’s about it. The rest of the stuff we all accumulated in Joburg, because when we started here we got a flat in Rosebank and we couldn’t understand why it was so expensive and now we’re like, “Because it’s Rosebank!” and that’s like … We got this little flat in Rosebank and we got hand-me-downs from our parents and garden furniture and also having our own taste we didn’t want too much of hand me downs but we thought we’d rather go without until we can buy our own. So the first year or so in Joburg was pretty much garden furniture, television on the floor and then built it up. I remember when Gert-Johan Coetzee got quite big and we were working from home and we ran out of space and we even had to change our bedroom into storage space. So our bed was a three-quarter bed, that we slept on for maybe a year, until we got a big house, but that is part of growing up, right?
R: Thank you so much. This was absolutely delightful. And all of the very, very best.
G: Thank you so much, it was such a great interview and we hope we can inspire change.
R: Absolutely. Until next time, go well.
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