By Carole Tanzer Miller
Germanee Gerald (B.S. Fashion and Textile Management ’13) had just reached a new rung on the corporate ladder at Gap Inc. when she marked her 10th anniversary with the apparel company in an unusual way: She quit.
“I had always wanted to sit in the C-suite at Gap corporate — that was my plan. That was not God’s plan,” Gerald says. “I was like, ‘OK, what’s really fueling my passion?’ And it was doing what I was doing from the hours of 5 to 9 versus my 9 to 5.”
In her off hours, Gerald was showing tech executives, entrepreneurs and entertainers how to develop their signature style. The company she created — GG+Co Styling Firm — in 2018 is a product of happenstance if not divine intervention.
When a Silicon Valley roommate asked her to help shop for clothes for speaking engagements, the polished wardrobe Gerald assembled got noticed. Soon, her roomie’s friends and Apple Inc. colleagues wanted Gerald to also help them.
Before long, her client list included such names as Valeisha Butterfield Jones, a Google vice president; Latasha Gillespie, head of global diversity at Amazon Studios; and champion sprinter Sanya Richards-Ross.
Gerald, 31, learns what image clients want to project and then she and three assistants choose clothing and accessories. Sometimes, Gerald combs through clients’ closets and shops for a few key pieces. Other times, she assembles a mix-and-match wardrobe with an eye on versatility. “None of my clients look the same — they all look like their authentic selves,” she says.
They keep her busy seven days a week. Gerald lives out of a suitcase as she shuttles from client to client, a far cry from the grounded life she expected when she entered NC State with plans to become a dentist.
“One thing I’ve learned about life is that I can tell you I’m going to do one thing and God’s going to tell me, ‘That’s absolutely incorrect,’” she says. “I think there’s so much out there that I haven’t even tapped into yet.”
This story was originally published by NC State magazine.
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