We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gerda Goosen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gerda below.
Alright, Gerda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Often the greatest growth and the biggest wins come right after a defeat. Other times the failure serves as a lesson that’s helpful later in your journey. We’d appreciate if you could open up about a time you’ve failed.
I have a big passion for aesthetics and visual things – I believe I could have chosen any design-related path and I would have been fulfilled. But a long time (more than 20 years!) ago I picked jewellery as the area in which I wanted to express my passion with my own hands.
I’ve always been a bit ‘contrarian’ and I don’t like traditional fine jewellery. So I guess it is no surprise that, from the start, I tried to make ‘different’ jewellery. Over a period of about 15 years I experimented with countless materials and designs, and finally plucked up the courage to approach a few local jewellery stores in South Africa to stock my jewellery.
I managed to convince a few jewellery stores to stock my jewellery on consignment and was over the moon. This was before I knew much about business. Unfortunately, I struggled a lot to get paid by the stores, and some of them in fact never paid me, but took my jewellery!
Luckily things finally turned around for me when I dropped these stores, focused on the few reliable stockists and brought in an assistant to help with finances and managing debtors.
I learnt a hard lesson about the need for small business owners to develop their business understanding and skills.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I have no formal training in jewellery manufacturing! I think this frees me up to work in an unconventional way, unconstrained by jewellery-making conventions.
I love organic forms, imperfections (wabi-sabi), working with my hands and the juxtaposition of old and new.
This finds expression in my jewellery. One of the aesthetics I find appealing and inspiring is old African tribal artefacts, and this has inspired me to develop what I call vegan ivory – a composite that looks like ivory, but has no animal ingredients or testing. I use this to explore different jewellery aesthetics, including my interpretation of African modernist jewellery.
I love bold and statement jewellery that express individuality, and so this is the jewellery that I make. My customers are mostly women in the design industry – women that look for something different.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I put years of development into developing metal jewellery with a ‘dug-up’ aesthetic. I finally succeeded, only for the metal forming partner that I was working with to stop the specific processes that I needed to produce the jewellery.
I searched all around South Africa and ultimately all around the world for someone that could assist me with this, but finally had to give up.
I had to accept that I had to start from scratch with different materials and processes if I wanted to make a success of my jewellery business.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
When I first heard of social media, I was completely disinterested in it, since I’m an introvert and more interested in business and aesthetics than people!
That was until I discovered Instagram, which obviously has a strong visual focus. I discovered so many inspiring artists and designers on there… It also made me realise that it was a powerful platform for small artists and businesses to show the world what they make and do.
I started an Instagram account for my jewellery business in 2019. It grew very slowly at first – I had to learn about what makes for a good post, how the algorithms work, etc. But over time I managed to grow the account, so that it has become the cornerstone of my jewellery business.
Advice I can give for those that start out with an Instagram or other social media profile:
1. Be consistent – post regularly
2. Understand who your audience is and what speaks to them
3. Learn to take good quality photos and videos, and make sure your products are clearly visible.
4. Engage with your audience
Contact Info:
- Website: https://gerdagoosen.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gerdagoosenjewellery/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gerdagoosenjewellery/
- Other: Pinterest: https://za.pinterest.com/gerda2060
Image Credits
Gerda Goosen