At the Table with: Kate Lowman
Introducing a *very* stylish friend, and an upcoming collaboration
I first met Kate in 2023 when she attended my open studio show with her husband and aspiring artist son, Julian. We immediately bonded over our youngest boys being only days apart - quickly followed by a shared love of color, art and style.
I find the process of getting dressed similar to creating a painting - you consider balance, shape, proportion, composition, color… and the best pieces always have something unexpected. Kate and I have a couple posts coming up where she uses my recent painting collection as a launching point to put together a series of outfits - they are so good you guys, I can’t wait to share!
But before we dive into that, I asked Kate to indulge me in a Q+A so you all could meet her. And when you finish reading, make sure to check out her Substack - Cedar Street Studio - and Instagram - A Day with Kate!
Katherine: Where do you live and who do you live with?
Kate: In August of 2024, I moved back to my hometown of Dayton, Ohio. It’s been incredible to be home as we are now 10 minutes away from my parents. And as if that wasn’t good enough my brother, cousins and many of my childhood friends are here too! Before that, I lived in Columbus, Ohio for twenty years.
I live with my husband Chris, and my three children: George (8), Julian (6) and Felix (2). I never in a million years expected to have three boys but they are SO FUN. Chris and I met in college and have been together for twenty years. I don’t even know how I’m old enough for that to be possible but I’ve officially lived more years of my life with my husband than without !
Katherine: How do you spend your days?
Kate: This should not be as complicated as it is to answer but I have several roles! The first and always most important, is caring for my boys. I have not worked in a traditional setting for almost a decade and for many years my sole job was caring for my little ones. These days that’s still my primary role, but with them now full time elementary school students, I have time for work again.
In addition to caring for my boys, I also care quite a bit for my parents. Unfortunately both my mom and dad have significant health issues and I’m their primary caretaker. They are absolutely phenomenal parents so I feel so happy to be helping them but it does dominate my schedule (sooo many doctor appointments).
After everyone is looked after, I work on a multitude of projects. I’ve learned to prioritize myself first (!!) so my business is my first stack of to do’s: I ideate digital content, film, edit, brainstorm outfit ideas, scan brands to inform my mood boards and trend work, create in Canva for various projects and write my Substack. After that work is in a good place, I work on my client work load! I support two small female founded brands: Orchard Lane Flowers and Will + Blu Interiors. I do a variety of work for each of them but on a broad level I help drive digital marketing strategies, business development work, social media content ideation and creation, publicity work and more!
Katherine: Tell us a little about your background in the fashion industry.
Kate: I worked as a merchant for PINK by Victoria’s Secret for over a decade. The brand was emerging when I started working there in 2008 and we were a small, fast growing business within a big business (Victoria’s Secret). It was as if I worked in a start up. The brand was expanding at such a fast pace that as an assistant merchant, I was given two categories to lead. I started as the lead merchant for swim and accessories, two businesses that we grew 2-3x over in just a couple years. From there I moved to bras, which at the time was not what girls came to PINK for (they came for sweats), and my boss and I were tasked with building bras into the same major success we had just done on swim and accessories. I worked on bras for many years, which was much more technical than fast fashion and rounded my skill set out in many ways. From bras, I moved to loungewear which at the time was PINK’s biggest category. By this time, PINK was huge and our teams were huge as well. There was a lot of pressure to deliver results on the biggest category of the brand and the delicate balance of fast fashion clothes with delivering consist results each week was a pressure cooker.
For context, because people don’t always know what I mean by merchant - merchants in my company were responsible for the entire product lifetime from concept to customer. Meaning we oversaw, managed, and made final decisions on all elements of the product. We worked with design to conceptualize the assortment, down to the size and coloring offering, worked with planning to determine how much volume our assortments would drive, developed launch cadences for every moment of our annual calendar of product launches and floorsets, worked with visual merchandising to layout the store with each assortment, worked with marketing to develop the marketing campaign and copy and oversaw the deployment and store execution of each floorset. Oh and we traveled across the country to our stores, to college campuses for focus groups, to Europe to shop, and to Asia to meet with our vendor base. (You can see how babies and being a great merchant could be in direct conflict with one another !
Katherine: How do you view the process and ritual of getting dressed?
Kate: As critical to my mental health. It sounds quite dramatic but it’s real. I’ve learned over the years that showering, getting dressed, putting on makeup, putting on my jewelry and a spritz of perfume every single day makes me feel like me. And when I don’t take that one hour at the top of my day to get ready, I feel like I’ve neglected myself. It’s easy as a stay at home parent or work from home employee to just live in lounge clothes, but I feel deeply about the power of dressing and you’d be surprised at how much more you can get done when you’re dressed for the day.
Katherine: How would you describe your style in three words?
Kate: Classic, colorful, trendy
The juxtaposition of classic and trendy is interesting to me, since they should cancel each other out. Yet they don't. I love a classic shape or look paired with an of-the-moment must have item. A great example of how to achieve this: a classic button down and straight leg denim paired with a trendy shoe (maybe it's a boat shoe loafer or studded ballet flat or minimal thong sandal). Then I would add a charm necklace (preferably with vintage charms), a scarf over my shoulders (a styling trick gaining momentum) and a bright bag.
Katherine: How has motherhood informed the way you dress, if at all?
Kate: Oof, motherhood decimated my personal style. I naively thought once I got back to my pre baby weight that my clothes would fit again but I was so wrong! My hips shifted, my feet grew a half size, my boobs were much bigger, my stomach couldn’t get as flat, etc etc. I felt awful in all of my clothes and unfortunately I found that to be true with each and every pregnancy. I truly feel that I’ve reinvented myself many times in the last decade trying to claw back some semblance of myself while also accounting for being a mom. There is a practicality that I find many women really lean into as a parent. I found myself doing that too and had to force myself to stop. Yes leggings are more comfortable than denim to wear while playing on the floor or playing at the park but I feel like a different person when I’m in an outfit styled back to denim then I do in my leggings. This is truly at the heart of why I created A Day with Kate.
Katherine: How would you describe the intersection of art and style?
Kate: I think the two are intrinsically connected. Both an artist and a stylish person have a critical eye. Both have an unnerving attention to details. They both understand color and color blocking. And I believe because there is a shared skill set, there is also a shared admiration for what the other does.
My mom is an artist and she spent much of my childhood working at the Dayton Art Institute. I spent most of my Saturdays as a girl roaming the museum while my mom caught up on work. To me, art was just always there. I thought that was normal. But now as a mom myself, I can see that was a very specific part of my childhood that I want to emulate for my boys. That exposure to art provided a foundation and cultivated a love for the arts that steered me in a direction of thinking that a creative role can be a job. I can’t paint like my mom can but I can still find that level of creative flow when I’m styling, building out a product line or creating mood boards.
Katherine: And finally, these mood boards are so inspiring! I’ve always admired your approach to dressing - it’s simultaneously functional as a mom of three boys while still elevated and interesting. Do you have any tips on how you achieve this?
Kate: Thank you!! That’s so kind. I found your new work incredibly inspiring.
The first and I think most important piece of advice might be a bit unexpected: EDIT EDIT EDIT.. So many women hang on to clothes that no longer suit them. I don’t do that. Most of my friends are shocked when they see how small my closet is. It’s because I’m constantly editing my wardrobe. I find it’s MUCH easier to come up with unexpected pairings when working with less.
The second piece of advice is to: INVEST. So many of us grew up in the days of Forever 21, Zara, H&M, etc and new clothes for every night out, or trip or important moment on the calendar. Fast fashion was quite literally shoved down our throats and then I literally made a career out of convincing people to buy something new every four weeks. Ugh. Now I’m really a snot about my clothes. I still constantly battle the engrained need to have new things all the time, but I do now have quality pieces in my wardrobe that fit and look better than their alternatives. This comes through in how I present myself.
And lastly: DEVELOP YOUR UNIFORM. So many of us are moms, caretaking, working and burdened by the heavy weight of our mental load. Having to spend time thinking about what we’ll wear tends to feel overwhelming and self indulgent. But I truly cannot say it enough: taking the time to find a look that *always* makes you feel good and finding a few similar items to achieve that look in a consistent way will change your life. You’ll notice an increase in productivity, that you get more compliments when you’re out, that you hardly think about clothes unless you want to! The best way to start this is by taking a mirror selfie (yes don’t cringe!) when you feel good about yourself. Throw those selfies into an album called “outfits I love” and spend a few months building out the album. Or you can go back through the past year and pull 9 of your favorite pictures of yourself and throw them into the album. Start to study the images and look for patterns in what you are wearing. These are the building blocks to determining your unique uniform. Spend more time doing this kind of exercise than looking at any editorial work. Then when you layer in outfits you see other places, you’ll know which pieces fit naturally with your uniform and which items to pass on.
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What a fun interview! Can’t wait to see the collab come to life 🎨
I love this! My 3 wardrobe words have always been classic, colorful, and cool. No wonder I love Kate’s style. I can’t wait to see the Katherine inspired looks she came up with! xx