Dear Readers,
 |
| Gert-Johan Coetzee |
They evidently have short memories at the
Now in a huge about turn in the lead story in its Insight
section recently, it described him as ‘one of the country’s most sought-after
dressmakers.’
Talk about eating Sampson’s words, which were very
unpalatable, this article was, fortunately for Coetzee, not one of Sampson. It
was written by Leonie Wagner.
The one Sampson regurgitated was about Melanie Olhaus, who
showed commendable ingenuity and daring to get Olympic swimming gold medallist
Chad le Clos to agree to partner her at her matric dance. She did this by
holding up an invitation placard in the crowd that gathered at
But instead of concentrating on this aspect of what was a
very unusual story, Sampson did her best to ruin the girl’s special occasion by
letting her poisonous pen run wild about
the girl’s matric dress and Coetzee himself.
She began: “Okay, so the dress was wrong. Anyone could see
that. It was a bit like a Swiss cheese,” she went on, “a hole where you expect
cheese, or a bit like a bathing suite that Ester Williams, a 50s swimming star
might have worn – in the pool – and it was little more than an animated rag.”
And if her own bitchy remarks were not enough she quoted an
anonymous colleague, who I do not believe existed, as saying, “It didn’t fit.”
After having a field day knocking Melanie’s dress Sampson
turned her attention to the designer. One of his greatest crimes, apart from
Melanie’s dress, was having designed one for one of the Kardashian sisters.
That made him “a warrior of the junk genre de
jour, of reality TV, of people who are famous for being famous (whatever
that means), people who are not famous at all but think they are.”
As if that was not enough of an insult she added: “With his
platinum curls and sweet lips, he has a terminal case of celebriphilia.”
In Sampson’s opinion Melanie didn’t even get her hair style
right as it was “augmented with extensions that gave the appearance of boiling
over.”
The latest article in the Sunday Times told us that Coetzee has designed dresses for the likes
of Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters, Oprah Winfrey US singer Kelly Rowland
and various other stars.
Not bad for a curly haired farm boy.
By coincidence Sampson’s byline that I have not seen all
that often in the paper recently, appeared in the same edition as the one about
Coetzee pictured on his family’s farm. Sampson was the author of The Drag
Trade, about the queens of the
Regards,
Jon, the Poorman’s Press Ombudsman and defender of curly
haired designers.
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