Germanee Gerald \u201913 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI had always wanted to sit in the C-suite at Gap corporate\u2009\u2014\u2009that was my plan. That was not God\u2019s plan,\u201d Gerald says. \u201cI was like, \u2018OK, what\u2019s really fueling my passion?\u2019 And it was doing what I was doing from the hours of 5 to 9 versus my 9 to 5.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her off hours, Gerald was showing tech executives, entrepreneurs and entertainers how to develop their signature style. The company she created\u2009\u2014\u2009GG+Co Styling Firm\u2009\u2014\u2009in 2018 is a product of happenstance if not divine intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s friends and Apple Inc. colleagues wanted Gerald to also help them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gerald, 31, learns what image clients want to project and then she and three assistants choose clothing and accessories. Sometimes, Gerald combs through clients\u2019 closets and shops for a few key pieces. Other times, she assembles a mix-and-match wardrobe with an eye on versatility. \u201cNone of my clients look the same\u2009\u2014\u2009they all look like their authentic selves,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne thing I\u2019ve learned about life is that I can tell you I\u2019m going to do one thing and God\u2019s going to tell me, \u2018That\u2019s absolutely incorrect,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cI think there\u2019s so much out there that I haven\u2019t even tapped into yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n
Germanee Gerald \u201913 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI had always wanted to sit in the C-suite at Gap corporate\u2009\u2014\u2009that was my plan. That was not God\u2019s plan,\u201d Gerald says. \u201cI was like, \u2018OK, what\u2019s really fueling my passion?\u2019 And it was doing what I was doing from the hours of 5 to 9 versus my 9 to 5.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her off hours, Gerald was showing tech executives, entrepreneurs and entertainers how to develop their signature style. The company she created\u2009\u2014\u2009GG+Co Styling Firm\u2009\u2014\u2009in 2018 is a product of happenstance if not divine intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s friends and Apple Inc. colleagues wanted Gerald to also help them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gerald, 31, learns what image clients want to project and then she and three assistants choose clothing and accessories. Sometimes, Gerald combs through clients\u2019 closets and shops for a few key pieces. Other times, she assembles a mix-and-match wardrobe with an eye on versatility. \u201cNone of my clients look the same\u2009\u2014\u2009they all look like their authentic selves,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne thing I\u2019ve learned about life is that I can tell you I\u2019m going to do one thing and God\u2019s going to tell me, \u2018That\u2019s absolutely incorrect,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cI think there\u2019s so much out there that I haven\u2019t even tapped into yet.\u201d<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Germanee Gerald \u201913 traded in a corporate career to become a wardrobe whisperer for high-profile clients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"backgroundColor\":\"red_400\",\"subtitle\":\"Germanee Gerald \u201913 traded in a corporate career to become a wardrobe whisperer for high-profile clients.\",\"displayCategoryID\":6,\"caption\":\"Photograph courtesy of Germanee Gerald \u201913.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10],"tags":[201,460,475,476,1265],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-3009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-bets","category-class-act","tag-carole-tanzer-miller","tag-gap","tag-germanee-gerald","tag-ggco-styling-firm","tag-wilson-college-of-textiles"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":6,"name":"Campus Lens","slug":"campus-lens","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":6,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3009"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5003,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3009\/revisions\/5003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3009"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=3009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}