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Emerging talent: Kat Gee

Kat Gee’s semi-precious, jelly-baby jewels are stocked in over 40 stores. But she works hard for her money

Kat Gee’s namesake animal struts past in a leopard-print collar. This is to be expected—if there’s one thing that unites Kagi fans it’s their quest for attention.

Kagi (K Gee) jewellery is designed to drape from wrist, neck and towards décolletage. Black quartz crucifixes hang incongruously from pearl necklaces and oversized silver safety pins dangle alongside chunky hearts. The statement is in the chain mail.

Fifteen months in, Gee’s semi-precious, jelly-baby jewels are stocked in over 40 stores. But she works hard for her money. The designer is also the brand’s photographer, sales rep, marketing manager, financial controller and model. Do you get the feeling someone in the family is a ‘life coach’? Gee’s sister’s business, Exceptional Life, is listed in the Christchurch Yellow Pages.

But you can find the younger sibling in Auckland city, designing out of a brick building opposite Showgirls. Here Gee hosts the stylists who execute her marketing plan (get product on fashion pages) for her marketing budget (nothing).

Limited capital often partners abundant creativity and the Kagi launch party was no exception: jewellery frozen in ice and delivered in incubators by friends-turned-model nurses.

One month later the jewellery was thawed out and hanging from swan-like necks at Air New Zealand Fashion Week—all part of Gee’s plan to position Kagi as ‘premium jewellery’ in the country’s collective consciousness by the time she’s 30.

At just 25, Gee has plenty of time for that—although, she says, “sometimes I look at my to-do list and want to assume the foetal position under my desk.”

Whatever works for you, Miss Gee, just make sure you’ve got your sketchpad down there with you—Fashion Week Take Two starts in September.

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