“I’m just ticking my boxes. Childhood dream after childhood dream after childhood dream.”
At only twenty eight years young – the Ukraine native – Cate Underwood started her career as a Harper’s Bazaar award-winning photographer, transitioned in front of the camera as an international cover girl, DJ’s underground clubs, leads sound design for the runways of Fashion Week and now adds Parisian perfumer to her ever growing list of dreams come true.
Growing up in post Soviet – Kiev, Ukraine – surrounded by brutalist buildings and “ugly things met with the phantasmagoric wealth obsessed” it seemed only natural for her to obsess over the clean and minimal. This juxtaposition lead her style to “My nineties redux – gold chains, leather, denim and clean cotton shirts. It’s my way of mixing it up.”
“My nineties redux—gold chains, leather, denim and clean cotton shirts. It’s my way of mixing it up.”
“One of the things I love about fashion photography is the great challenge to take your own persona, your own way of expressing yourself and be able to do it in another frame when collaborating with brands or editorial teams.”
A quick Google search of Cate will yield image after image of her in front of the camera from the world’s best editorials from the Vogue’s, WSJ, L’Officiel Paris and various others. She was, in fact, a photographer first and in 2010 won Ukraine Harper’s Bazaar Fashion Forward Award for photography. A year later, she was catching up with a model agent she had been working with on her shoots. The two had never met face-to-face. The Parisian model agent asked “you want to try, in front of the camera?” “Honestly, another childhood dream. So I’m just ticking my boxes. Childhood dream after childhood dream after childhood dream,” says Cate.
While Cate is a strong, independent spirit with a definitive point of view, she is also a student of her environment. “I figured out very fast that fashion is about teamwork. As much as I enjoy doing things by myself, I’m eager to hear other people’s vision as well. One of the things I love about fashion photography is the great challenge to take your own persona, your own way of expressing yourself and be able to do it in another frame when collaborating with brands or editorial teams.”
Another dream come true, the chance to DJ for an audience. While she considers DJing a hobby, for her it feels like another beautiful collaboration. One between herself, the music and the audience. “It’s about this energy exchange. Being able to see people happy, dancing, laughing – it’s the ultimate satisfaction!”
