High fashion, fresh from the farm
I remember driving around with my dad sitting at the back of the bakkie, going to check up on all the animals on the farm and going to feed them, that is such a special bond between a parent and a child. When we were in the hard lockdown it really made me think how important that bond with your family is
A patient brought him a little flower-girl dress when he was two years old. He would stare at that dress and enjoy playing with it. He looked at that dress very differently to the way other boys looked at it. That’s when we realised fashion would be his passion
lockdown and we couldn’t see our friends or family. It really made me think how important that bond with your family is. I kept thinking of the farm and growing up here and what that was like.
“This is about going back to my roots and remembering what I love. When I sit back I just remember what it was like growing up here; it brings so much joy — and new ideas,” Coetzee says.
One gloomy Friday in March, just before the lockdown, we drove with Coetzee and Visagie to the family home in Koster, some 20km from the farm. He was celebrating his 10th year in the industry.
Arriving at his home, we were welcomed by his mother, Hestie, and the smell of pancakes as thin as chiffon, and freshly brewed coffee.
His mom had strategically placed a vintage Empisal sewing machine on the mahogany dining room table — the machine her son first started sewing on. Before telling the story of how her last-born son fell in love with fashion, the soft-spoken Afrikaans physiotherapist leaves the lounge and returns with two files filled with newspaper clippings and magazine cutouts. The files contain designs dating back to the dress he made for the first competition he entered as a pre-teen.
Coetzee went from designing dresses for pencils when he was six years old to dressing personalities like Bonang Matheba, Miss Universe’s Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters and Zozibini Tunzi, Oprah Winfrey, US singer Kelly Rowland, Lerato Kganyago, Somizi Mhlongo and Minnie Dlamini, to name a few.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to become, I just knew I wanted to make dresses and create red-carpet moments,” Coetzee said at the time.
His mother believes the dress that started it all was one given to him by a patient she treated at her practice 30 years ago.
“A patient brought him a little flower-girl dress when he was two years old. He would stare at that dress and enjoy playing with it. He looked at that dress very differently to the way other boys looked at it. That’s when we realised fashion would be his passion,” said Hestie.
When she was young, Hestie always wanted to sew but couldn’t afford the material. After moving from the farm to the maze-like house in town, Coetzee spent his afternoons playing on the sewing machine, while his mom was at work.
After standard 4, he began home schooling and by then he’d already started taking formal sewing lessons and winning small competitions. He was known as the boy who made alterations.
By the time puberty hit, he was winning more competitions and making matric dance dresses for girls in the area. At 15 he dropped out of school altogether to focus on fashion.
“At that stage fashion was already such a big part of my life and it was consuming most of my day. School never came naturally to me because I have dyslexia. Reading and writing was very hard and it still is today,” Coetzee says.
A chubby, acne-faced 16-year-old, Coetzee left his parents’ home in Koster for a hostel in Klerksdorp at the North West School of Design. On a night out he met Visagie at a party. The couple have been together ever since.
Visagie, who is the brand manager for the business, has been there for every big, bad and ugly moment. One of those was a failed business partnership that ended in a famous bust-up.
In his second year of college, Coetzee won the high fashion award at the annual Vukani fashion awards, founded by Sonwabile Ndamase, the designer of the Madiba shirts.
Coetzee was spotted by television presenter Sandy Ngema, who later asked him to design her outfit for the Durban July.
When Ngema was called to present the SABC3 reality show Strictly Come Dancing she called in Coetzee to design her a showstopper for each episode.
He met socialite and actress Uyanda Mbuli, who was a contestant on the show. The duo started a fashion label and opened their flagship boutique in Rosebank in 2009. But the partnership quickly soured, making it one of the most talked about fashion break-ups of the time.
“That was a very hard time because I was so young and not sure how to speak properly or defend myself. It was a tough time but it all worked out for the best. If I think back I really thought my whole dream was melting away in front of me. That for me was one of the hardest things, but it was also one of the best things. If that didn’t happen you probably wouldn’t have Gert-Johan Coetzee today,” he says.
A decade later and he’s come full circle. Post-lockdown, Coetzee is focused on creating outfits that are sustainable.
The T-shirt he is wearing is made from plastic bottles. Sustainability and fair trade have become big buzzwords in the fashion industry and are an important part of his collection and his strategy. One of the outfits he designed is made from a fabric called tensile, which is made from wood.
Back on the farm, Coetzee is unfazed by the heaps of cow dung all round. His inner germaphobe shines through when he regularly checks for ticks and warns everyone to check themselves for ticks too.
As the October sun strengthens, Coetzee’s fair skin slowly goes from pink to a light shade of red. Cellphone in hand, Coetzee directs model Sizakele Khoale, who has quickly had to get comfortable in layers of avant-garde pieces, heels — and manure.
He jokes about how comfortable he is with boobs.
“We went to a topless pool once and I didn’t realise it was a topless pool, because I don’t see boobs any more.”
Whenever they’re in Koster, he and his family often have dinner at the Koster Golf Club, which is run by Coetzee’s family. This visit is different because Coetzee is fasting in an attempt to get rid of the extra lockdown kilograms.
At our visit in March, we went to the old Afrikaans pub, which has what can only be described as a special mix of small-town kitsch and chic. Coetzee ordered his favourite “cheat meals” of chicken and mayo pizza, ribs, wings and chips, while Hestie pulled out bottles of chilled champagne from a cooler box and champagne flutes. At the time, Coetzee joked: “Even if we’re in Koster, you’re with Gert-Johan; of course we’re going to drink champagne, darling.”
As golden hour approaches, the herd of cows seems to flirt with the camera and each outfit that is being shot on the farm is a detailed art piece. For Coetzee it was about showing his creativity and his take on African baroque, with a modern twist.
He may have changed his signature hair, swapping the blond cannoli look for a more contemporary subtle bed-hair look, but Gert-Johan Coetzee will always have a penchant for flamboyance. There’s still a lot of baroque in the .