BABE #52: KATE ALBRECHT,Founder + Boss Lady @ Mr. Kate
Mr. Kate // Sofia Draco
Kate Albrecht aka Mr. Kate is a freakin' renaissance woman. Raised in the Waldorf school system and as the product of two Los Angeles artists, creativity is in her blood. She makes home, style and beauty content, and you might know her from her videos, where she re-decorates spaces of popular YouTube personalities alongside her husband (and former member of The Click Five, #swoon,) Joey Zehr. When she's not shooting video content, she's designing and creating her line of jewelry and accessories, maintaining her lifestyle blog, writing, acting, and embarking on her next DIY project, et cetera. She's a force to be reckoned with who has built an empire out of her creative business, and I'm grateful she took the time to chat with me. Thanks so much, Mr. Kate! You're a babe.
The Basics:
Hometown: San Fernando Valley, CA
Current city: Los Angeles, CA
Alma mater: Loyola Marymount University
Degree: BA in Film Production & Theater
Hustle: Founder and Boss Lady @ Mr. Kate
Beauty Room Makeover - PatrickStarrr // Sofia Draco
The Interests:
Babe you admire and why?
There are so many, but Lilly Singh! She’s a hustler, very kind, and super smart. We just decorated two rooms for her!
How do you spend your free time?
Working out (to keep my sanity), cuddling with my kitties, laughing with friends — I don’t have friends who don’t make me laugh, ain’t nobody got time for that.
Favorite app, website or blog?
I spend the majority of my time on Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. I love Pinterest for interior design inspiration — that’s where I pull almost all my images for moodboarding.
The Hustle:
What does your typical workday look like?
In this job, there is no typical workday! Since Mr. Kate is a company that has a lot of different aspects, my time is always distributed among several outlets. I’ll have days where I just design jewelry, or get my pens or paints out and create new BeautyMarks designs (always fun!) A lot of time also goes into preparing for our larger interior design shoots like OMG We Bought A House, and especially OMG We’re Coming Over. I’ll spend time aggregating inspiration to make moodboards for a space, and then the fun part — shopping! The days on set are long, but there is so much energy and I’m always excited to be creating new content for all the creative weirdos!
Office Makeover - Lily Singh // Sofia Draco
You seem to be pushing gender stereotypes by branding yourself as 'Mr.Kate' – can you explain the name in a bit more detail and how it reflects you and your brand?
One of the things that calls out to me most in creativity and life is juxtaposition. I love taking things that seem so opposite and finding the unexpected beauty and fun of pairing them together. Mr. Kate is a representation of that. It’s a meeting of the masculine and the feminine in me, and in this company. We aren’t all just one thing! We are many things, and that’s more than okay - it’s wonderful! So ‘Mr. Kate’ is a celebration of all those aspects of ourselves and our lives that don’t fit neatly into one category.
Mr. Kate & Joey's Office // Sofia Draco
How the heck have you managed to balance your YouTube channel, product lines, book, events, press, acting, managing a team, marriage and having a social life?!
When you put it like that, it sounds overwhelming! All of these things are positive things, that creatively or otherwise engage me, so I feel lucky to get to be balancing them! It can be hard to stay on task sometimes, but I have found that I know what structure works for me and I have to stick by that uncompromisingly. I have a lot of people (our team, our collaborators, all of our viewers and fans) to do my best by, but I can’t do that if I’m not doing my best by me. So my advice is to find a structure that works for you — and it will take time to do that! — and then stick by it. Even if that means something has to wait, you deserve the time you need to do things right and not overwork yourself.
Bedroom Makeover - Lily Singh // Sofia Draco
When in your career did you decide to bring on a team to assist you, and what was that process like?
Having a team is great, because it has allowed me to be able to get so much more done with the Mr. Kate name than I would have been able to just by myself! When bringing on a team or a new team member, I would say to really look at where you need help, where a gap is, or on an area that just isn’t getting enough attention. Also, know how to do every job you’re asking someone else to do when first hiring. It’s much easier to manage the process that way. Once you start bringing on the first and second people, the spaces where the other team members should fit in kind of appear like puzzle pieces!
Mr. Kate Team // Sofia Draco
How would you say being a woman has affected your career, work or general professional experience?
I’m lucky to have grown up in an environment that supported creative women, so I always had that positivity and power behind me as I pursued my own career as a woman in a creative field. I want to be able to represent that kind of icon to people that see me and my company, and further the empowerment of women as business owners and bosses who can get shit done but also be able to have fun at the same time!
OMG We Bought a House Series // Sofia Draco
What is your current work environment like?
We’re lucky enough to have an office and studio space in Los Angeles that houses our entire team and has a space in the back where we can shoot! We moved from a space that was a glorified hallway with the entire team in one room to a much bigger layout, which was great for the team and also as a step for the company! When we moved in, the office was bright orange on the outside and a little drab on the inside, so a big project last year was transforming it into a chic, inspiring space that really represents the brand and allows us all to get our best work done on a functional and motivational level. We recorded this process and turned it into a series called Office Goals, which is on our YouTube channel!
Mr. Kate Office Building // Sofia Draco
What are some of the everyday struggles with your job that we might not see?
I try to talk about this on the interior design shopping vlogs on the channel, but when preparing for a shoot, there is so much that can go wrong! A piece of furniture doesn’t come on time or it arrives damaged, and I have to head back out to the stores to find a last-minute replacement! Or just as recently as this past weekend, we had to switch our shoot schedule less than 24 hours in advance because it was pouring outside! There is definitely an element of needing to be able to think and land on your feet at this job.
Bedroom Makeover -MyLifeAsEva // Sofia Draco
What made you interested in interior design? Is that a route you always know you’d take, or something that just organically happened as you explored your creativity?
I’ve been surrounded by interior design my entire life, and while it wasn’t what I immediately pursued (which you know, was acting), it was always a large part of my life. Even when studying film, I was so drawn to and invested in set design. The passion for it was always there, so when the opportunity to pursue it more as a career path opened up, everything just fell into place!
Mr. Kate // Sofia Draco
