Spotlight on Nompumelelo Nhlapo of Gadat House: 3D Florals for Spring

BY TASMIYAH OUMAR
Sep 5, 2024
3 min read

Photo: Nompumelelo by @davidblaqrsa

The 2025 Spring/Summer trends showcase unique textures and silhouettes, and we’ve found the perfect 3D textured pieces for you to incorporate into your spring closet. Nompumelelo Nhlapo founder and creative director of Gadat House brings spring’s essence to life with custom, hand-stitched satin pieces that embody the season’s spirit of growth and renewal.

Gadat House is a luxury story-telling fashion house based in Johannesburg that creatively fuses community and art to create empowering ready-to-wear pieces. I fell in love with Nompumelelo’s unique use of the flower in three dimensions and decided to have a chat with her about one of her unique pieces: the floral corset, which is customisable in twenty colours!

Photo: mpumi_nhlapho

I first encountered Nompumelelo Nhlapo through her impressive win in the Woolworths 2024 Youth Makers competition, featured on their website. Her recently-launched atelier centres on story-telling, an ingenious approach rooted in Africa’s oral traditions. For Nompumelelo, fashion is second-nature, since she was just six years old, she dreamed of becoming a fashion designer. Her mother and stepfather can attest to her early obsession with garment-making. A key moment of inspiration for her was a Jason Wu fashion show that she stumbled across when she turned 12 years old. Although it was on television, Nompumelelo described the show as “impactful”: “As a black girl, I had only seen white men take a bow after their shows. I know that Jason Wu is an Asian designer but it gave me the idea that I too could create a brand and tell stories that reflected the experiences of people who looked like me”.

One can say that Nompumelelo is just as much an artist as she is a designer. She describes herself as a “sponge” as she is a sensitive individual who is able to draw inspiration from wherever she can, be it people, place, music and/or movies. Her designs are deeply inspired by nature, where she feels "most grounded" and can "hear her voice the clearest."

Nompumelelo’s flower corset is a beautiful statement piece to add to your spring wardrobe. The beauty of it, according to Nompumelelo, is that it can be styled both casually and for a more formal occasion; “It works for when you want to stand out but want minimal effort”.

Photo: Woolworths

If you’re wondering how you can style this bespoke piece, Nompumelelo suggests pairing it with shorts on a picnic date, jeans for a dinner out with friends, or for a more formal occasion, a tailored trouser accompanied by heels and accessories. The corset’s unique 3D floral design is a symbol of growth for Gadat House. A piece close to her heart, Nompumelelo crafted the corset to remind her of her constant growth and blossoming as an individual and designer. To her surprise, the corset became her breakthrough design of last year.

Photo Design: Tasmiyah

Although she is unable to choose her favourite spring piece from her collection (because they’re all so lovely, of course), Nompumelelo adores the white bouquet bumshorts as they “scream spring”, and summer too might I add. We love that they’re a cross between shorts and a skirt and perfect to layer as a statement piece!

As seen in her designs, Nompumelelo gravitates more towards the 3D textures spring trend as their tactile nature engages our sense of touch. She is excited to find other ways to implement textures in her designs: “I love the idea of using senses to complete a story, and touch is a sense I think has a lasting effect when it comes to garment design”.

Photos: David Blaq

Currently, Nompumelelo is working on a new collection titled “Chapter 3: Different Shades of Darkness”. This will be a rather personal collection as it “has been an exploration of [her] depression through music and fashion”. The chapter is currently on hold as Nompumelelo recently released “Amahle”, a project shot by David Blaq, with a fashion film also in the works. A true creative visionary, Nompumlelo surrenders to her art: “I love to feel like my creative process is a river and I tend to surrender to the flow of where it takes me”. I am sure that you are just as excited as us to see what beautiful garments and stories Nompumelelo comes up with next!