Hey

I'm Kate
An illustrator, painter & podcaster fascinated by Old Hollywood with a mission to help you create the space and life that you most want.

Armed with my knowledge of Grace Kelly’s favourite costume designers (Edith Head, Helen Rose and Oleg Cassini), the Ziegfeld Follies’ barely-there costumes and the slinky 1930s bias cut dresses from Adrian, I started my fashion design education in London. Young and full of Old Hollywood swagger in my step I started out to become the designer of dreamy gowns and sequinned mesh attire. Reality check: Not too many people wear that anymore (gasp!). So, I turned my knowledge of the golden age of Hollywood, my new-found proficiency in fashion design and my burning desire for illustration into my business: Illustrating Old Hollywood stars and their most iconic dresses.

Old Hollywood is not only glamorous -
it is deeply inspiring

When I grew up, there were only three TV channels available (crazy stuff, right?). On weekends, the public stations used to air the classics – Doris Day, Jane Russell, Grace Kelly, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman filled my rainy childhood afternoons. I actually thought that everyone growing up would become so incredibly charming, beautiful and extraordinary. Reality check: No, they ain’t. 

But the lasting impressions these silver screen sirens and gents had on me filled my daydreaming days in college and beyond. It took YEARS for me to actually realise why I am so completely mesmerised by anything Old Hollywood: It is the mystery of how to create a truly glamorous life.

Isn’t that why we all love Hollywood so much? The illusion. The concerted effort of screenwriters and costume designers, producers and directors, stylists and PR executives. They all come together to create something overwhelmingly extraordinary. Because that is the definition of glamorous (well, one of them .. but, let’s roll with it) 

Glamorous

(glæmərəs), adjective

If you describe someone or something as glamorous, you mean that they are more attractive, exciting, or interesting than ordinary people or things.

If there is one thing that Old Hollywood understood better than any other place or time after that is that people want extraordinary, they adore it so much so that they become fans. Why? Because  they want to be inspired, they want to be taken to this dream world of make-believe, of beautiful sequinned ball gowns and dainty faints into Rhett Butler’s arms. They want to escape their everyday. 

How can you use this for your life?

Each one of us can adapt the mindset of an Old Hollywood studio and become the star of their own blockbuster movie life. You are not forced to sit on the bylines and watch the leading lady high heel into her fashionable happily-ever-after with the handsome hero. You can become the leading lady. You can become the star of your own show. You can write the witty dialogues and impossible action scenes (okay, maybe skip the latter, though …). 

My work is supposed to make you feel all the tingly feels of being the star of your life, of being capable of achieving your dreams, of marrying the handsome handyman and of having all the sequinned gowns (if you need help with those, call me).

As I dove deeper into the exquisite rabbit hole that Old Hollywood is, I discovered many stories about the people behind the star image, behind the facade. Where they came from. What they endured. How they became what we know them for. These stories are so incredibly inspiring and provide so many life lessons that I wanted to share them with you. 

Have a listen to my podcast on the lives and styles of Old Hollywood stars. And if that is not inspiration enough to lead an extraordinary, sorry: glamorous, life, my podcast Unapologetically Extraordinary focuses solely on how to lead an extraordinary life.

As I told you: Old Hollywood is not only glamorous – it is deeply inspiring. 

Thank you for being here and taking the time.

xx, 

Kate

Old Hollywood

Inspiration

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