Where Fashion Meets Stone: Gert-Johan Coetzee’s Luxury Boutique with Interslab

Gert-Johan Coetzee has spent much of his career making fabric move. From the way a dress falls to how texture catches the light, the internationally celebrated South African fashion designer understands the difference a material can make. So when it came to designing his first physical boutique at Johannesburg’s Winifred Mandela Precinct, he approached the interiors with the same curiosity. Only this time, he was working with stone.

For Coetzee, the transition from fashion to interiors was a chance to explore how materials could shape an entire space, not just a garment.

“For me, it was a shift from the body to the environment,” he explains. “In fashion, material responds to movement, proportion and the human form. In a space, material has to create that same emotional response through scale, surface, light and permanence.”

Working with Interslab, Coetzee selected Infinity Surfaces Taj Mahal flooring and Perlato Olympo marble for the boutique, using their distinctive colours, veining and textures to create an interior that complements his fashion collections.

He describes marble and porcelain as “architectural textiles”, a fitting comparison from someone accustomed to working with fabrics. Just as the cut and drape of a garment can transform its appearance, the direction of veining, the scale of a surface and the way it reflects light can change how a room looks and feels.

The challenge was to create a space with its own character without taking attention away from the clothing. While new collections, colours, and silhouettes will continually change the boutique’s appearance, the stone provides a lasting backdrop and brings a sense of continuity to the interiors.

As the project developed, the materials began influencing the design itself. Coetzee found that exploring different surfaces opened up possibilities he hadn’t initially considered, much like discovering a fabric that takes a fashion collection in an unexpected direction.

For Chad Raats, Marketing Manager at Interslab, this was what made the collaboration particularly interesting. “Gert was interested in what the surfaces could bring to the space. How they could connect mood, add weight, work with the clothes and become part of the architecture. That gave us a very different starting point,” he explains.

The boutique marks the start of Interslab’s Crafting Extraordinary collaboration with Coetzee, bringing creative talent and beautiful materials together to see what new design possibilities emerge.

And for Coetzee, the attention to detail goes well beyond the garments on display. “Luxury, for me, is not simply about opulence,” he says. “It is about the quality of every decision.”

From the marble surfaces to the fashion they surround, the boutique brings that philosophy into focus, showing how a designer’s understanding of fabric, form and craftsmanship can translate beautifully into an entirely different medium.