HOW HE CHILLS
- Walks up Lion’s Head
- Plays golf
- Has family easel time at Art Jamming in the Cape Quarter with his two daughters (8 and 4)
By fluke, the man who heads the greenest clothing label in SA happens to be lunching in a greenish ambience in the heart of Cape Town. Mint is as quietly cool as its name, one wall covered with discreet vineyard graphics on aluminium.
It’s the all-day dining option at the city’s new Taj Hotel. Part of a worldwide luxury Indian chain, one of Asia’s biggest, this R500m gem sits behind the facades of what were once the BoE building and the Reserve Bank. Its foyer has retained much of the original marble grandeur.
The restaurant is less formal, opening on to St George’s Mall, so you can eat outside. I choose a calm green banquette inside and eat a naaza — India’s naan bread version of the pizza, with homemade paneer cheese.
It’s a delicious accompaniment to Jonathan Katz’s uplifting local rag trade story, replete with eco-hippie overtones, of how he took his Earthchild clothing concept from one to 15 stores in 13 years, with no experience, and is now poised for international expansion. He’s 41.
Katz says the brand philosophy is to design beautiful clothing in harmony with the worldwide return to nature. Clothing in earth tones and 100% organic cotton which supports all those ethical values that benefit both planet and workers. “Territories with unregulated labour practices like China are a no- go manufacturing area for our brand and ethos, for instance,” he says, “and cotton grown without pesticides helps Mother Earth.”
He’s on the green bandwagon, of course. But with such style and attention to quality it’s not surprising that when a leading international retailer saw his Earthaddict store for women in the V&A Waterfront — all tranquillity, earth-inspired décor and beautifully made designs that feel good on the skin — it asked if he wanted to expand into Europe.
That approach led to a meeting with the Body Shop International’s Swiss franchisee and former board member, Ivan Levy. “He saw our SA stores, fell in love with the concept and is now a nonexecutive director on the Earthchild board. He’s a retail genius who was the Body Shop’s director of retail. We’re fortunate to have him working on our three- year international expansion plan in tandem with our local roll-out of another 20-25 stores.
“We will do it as opportunities arise, however, and if the feasibility passes our internal hurdle rates. We’ve learnt a few lessons from brands that have crashed as a result of the too-fast-too-soon-too- much syndrome. We’re selective about retail sites. Prime shopping centres only. But it’s a battle. The perception among landlords is that international brands should have first bite.”
Katz was 23, a bright spark with an Institute of Marketing diploma, when he and his sister, a new mom, launched a babies’ clothing range out of a spare room in Houghton, Johannesburg. “My cousin was in the trade and he told us where to get fabric and a pattern-maker. I knew so little that when I took my first batch of 400 to the CMT people [cut, make & trim], I had only a one-size pattern.”
Four years later he opened his first Earthchild store in the V&A Waterfront, and a second followed in Hyde Park within six months, selling clothes for newborns to eight-year-olds. In 2003 he bought out his sister.
“We were manufacturing in our own factories in Woodstock and Paarden Eiland and outsourcing as well. Gradually things got tougher and we exhausted all avenues in the local industry. Now our designs are made up mainly in Mauritius. It’s part of the Southern African Development Community, so our designs come into SA duty-free.”
His wife Cara has her own small accessories business in the V&A Waterfront. They live in Fresnaye.
“My eldest daughter is over the moon because she’s just turned eight and can graduate to another clothing brand. What she doesn’t know,” he says jokingly, “is that I’m upping Earthchild’s age limit to nine.”
