Fashion has always been about more than clothes.
A silhouette can communicate confidence. A colour can establish a mood. A beautifully constructed garment can become part of a person’s identity.
Now, Gert-Johan Coetzee is taking that idea somewhere far more intimate: scent.
The South African designer is launching a six-fragrance collection through a new retail collaboration with the Foschini Group, with the rollout beginning at Sandton City.
And while the latest collection marks a significant expansion of the Gert-Johan Coetzee brand, it is not the designer’s first encounter with the world of perfume.
It is a return — and a considerably bigger one.
From couture to something you cannot see
Coetzee first entered the fragrance world in 2020 with Double Platinum Eau de Parfum, a unisex fragrance created as an extension of his couture philosophy.
At the time, the designer described fragrance as a form of everyday couture. The project was developed in collaboration with perfumer Karine Vinchon-Spehner in Grasse, France, with Coetzee involved in the formulation, design and packaging.
The inspiration was deeply personal.
Double Platinum drew on Coetzee’s connection to Rustenburg and its platinum mines, with the fragrance using rose, smoke, oud and berries to create a scent built around contrasts.
That first fragrance also established something important about Coetzee’s approach to perfume: it was never simply about attaching a designer’s name to a bottle.
It was about translating the world behind the clothes into something people could wear differently.
Six years later, that idea is expanding.
Six scents. A much bigger stage.
In a 2026 interview, Coetzee confirmed that he had been personally developing six fragrances for a Foschini launch, although the details were still being kept secret at the time.
The timing is significant.
The new collection moves the designer’s fragrance offering from the more exclusive positioning associated with his earlier scent into a major South African retail environment.
The Foschini Group collaboration gives the collection a different kind of reach, while the Sandton City rollout places the launch in one of Johannesburg’s most prominent shopping destinations.
For consumers, that changes the relationship between designer and fragrance.
The Gert-Johan Coetzee name is no longer only encountered on a runway, red carpet or fashion editorial. It is entering an everyday retail space where shoppers can discover the collection for themselves.
The designer’s scent story is evolving
There is also an intriguing continuity between Coetzee’s fashion career and his approach to fragrance.
His work has long been associated with glamour, dramatic silhouettes and red-carpet dressing. His earlier fragrance venture took that same language and translated it into scent.
But fragrance can do something fashion cannot.
You do not have to wait for an occasion to wear it.
You do not need a red carpet.
You do not even need an elaborate outfit.
A fragrance can become part of the ordinary rituals of getting ready, leaving home, going to work or stepping into an evening.
That makes the move into a broader retail fragrance collection particularly interesting for the brand.
It takes an idea born in couture and gives it an everyday life.
Sandton City gets the first look
The collection’s South African retail rollout is taking place through the Foschini Group, with Sandton City at the forefront of the launch.
For a brand built around visual spectacle, there is something fitting about introducing its latest chapter in a major shopping destination.
But the Sandton launch is not intended to be the end of the story.
More stores are set to follow in due course, expanding the collection’s retail footprint beyond its initial launch point.
That means the six fragrances could soon become a more familiar part of South Africa’s beauty and fragrance landscape.
A fragrance business with history behind it
The deeper story here is perhaps the most interesting one.
Coetzee is not entering fragrance because fashion has run out of places to go.
He has already demonstrated that he understands the discipline behind creating a scent.
His 2020 project took more than a year to develop and involved work in Grasse, widely recognised as one of the world’s historic centres of perfumery.
His interest in the category has also continued. In 2024, Coetzee spoke about having studied perfumery in Grasse and identified another of his fragrances as a favourite.
The six-fragrance collection therefore feels less like a side project and more like an evolution of an established creative interest.
Fashion gave Coetzee the language.
Fragrance gives him another medium.
What comes next?
For now, the intrigue is part of the appeal.
The latest announcement confirms the six-fragrance collection, the Foschini Group retail collaboration and the initial Sandton City rollout. More stores are expected in due course.
The individual fragrance names and detailed scent profiles, however, have not been supplied in the announcement.
That leaves plenty for consumers to discover when the collection reaches them.
And perhaps that is exactly the point.
For a designer whose career has been built around anticipation — the reveal of a collection, the first glimpse of a gown, the moment a look reaches the runway — fragrance offers another kind of reveal.
One that does not begin with what you see.
It begins with what you smell.
Gert-Johan Coetzee’s next chapter is no longer just something to look at. It is something to experience.
