Katherine is an independent designer building Keshki, creating custom kimonos. She received her BFA in Industrial Design from RISD and previously worked at Cartier.
Making kimonos —> brand is for original eyewear
Difficulty is a lot of factories don’t do original eyewear
Do eyewear licensing, you put your brand/logo on it
Creating new products/molds is difficult/expensive
To fund that process, making vintage reworked kimonos
Western mindset —> recycling/rewearing kimonos
Grew up wearing hello kitty / super cute kimonos
Unloved/forgotten kimonos
Our culture has made it so distinct kimonos have one event only
Formalwear/textile - look at the weave and how it’s made, where it’s from
reinstill value within the kimonos through reworking
Inspired by tokyo streetwear, kawaii grunge punk
Riveting, grometing, leather cords and chains, handmade, hand sewing
Hope kimonos
Latest inspirations?
Cute techno music, forest animals, color brown
Most surreal project?
Second piece that I made — daunting oshimatsuki (highly prestigious forms for Japanese textile weaving for kimonos)
Person that sourced it said it was $70k, $20 when purchased
Get over the pressure
Love how it turned out, detailing is subtle
What is your creative process?
Inspiration from niche accounts on IG
Gamed algorithm so all ads are for niche Japanese streetwear brands, also doing handmade clothing
Follow a bunch of accounts, see distressing / reworking techniques
Pinterest — helmut lang for leather cords corset top
Taking inspiration from all of these platforms
People watching in Omotesando, Harajuku - see what people are wearing in real time
Intuitive process, look at kimono piece, how it fits, how textile responds to treatment
Sketch out final product
Final product & sketch look nothing like each other
Patterns take away rather than add
Weeklong process of adding/taking then finalizing
End result — dress form, pin to dress form, take pictures with high flash to further suggest the grungy feel
Map out your creative journey
(1) Pre-creation — 50% a lot of thinking and researching, not a lot of media printed out or fabrics cut out, thinking about overall look
(2) Creation — 40% already prepared everything in pre-creation
(3) Post-creation — 10-20%
Favorite design tools and why?
Physical tools — sewing machine, gromit tool, hole punching leather tool
Digital tools - IG (preproduction phase), Pinterest
Doesn’t know other tools out there
What are the challenges in your creative process?
Posting on social media
Don’t know how to communicate efficiently about my work, have the idea to game the algorithm and it’s stressful
If you could change one thing about your creative process, what would it be?
Make it more analog
remove the algorithm
fruits/popeye magazine
Printing a catalog of images
When are you most inspired?
At night, right before bed, have all these ideas to keep writing them down
Creative habits?
Routine based person, follow orderly fashion for preparing and sourcing and gathering materials
Where/how do you do your best work?
In the studio I have upstairs — not necessarily where I do my best work, want a studio not in my home
How do you hope to grow as a creative?
Community building — flea markets, pop ups, less online presence and more physical, get to know other people