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Kate Lambert | |
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Born | |
Nationality | British/American (naturalized) |
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Known for |
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Label | Steampunk Couture |
Website | steampunkcouture |
Kate Lambert, known professionally as "Kato", is a British model, fashion designer, singer and entrepreneur. A native of Wales, Kato emigrated to the United States in 2007. She became a US citizen in 2019.
One of the most recognisable faces of the steampunk community, Kato has been called "the supermodel of steampunk" [1] [ non-primary source needed ] and steampunk's "it" girl. [2] Steampunk comic heroine Lady Mechanika was inspired by her look, [3] and her work has been featured in several books on steampunk art and fashion including International Steampunk Fashions, where her photo is featured prominently on the cover. [4]
Kato was also on the cover of the August 2014 issue of Bizarre Magazine, [5] which referred to her as a "steampunk idol" and "pin-up legend". She also appeared on the cover of the Spring 2012 issue of FEY Magazine, [6] and also the covers of September 2012 Ladies of Steampunk [7] and April 2013 LoSP Bronze Age (NSFW) [8] magazines. In July 2016 she was on the cover of Phantasm Magazine's steampunk issue, where she was referred to as "The Queen of Steam". [9]
Kato is a frequent guest speaker at steampunk conventions, most recently Wild Wild West Con in Tucson, Arizona and Salt City Steamfest in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Kato is the third of four daughters born to wildlife painter Terence Lambert and his wife, a school headmistress/principal. She grew up in a Victorian rectory behind a 13th-century cemetery, and credits this for her love of Victorian style. [10] She left school at 16 and finished her final two years at a tech college where she could specialise in fine art. [11] She then went on to complete a course in fashion and textiles at the South West Wales School of Art in Carmarthen. After graduating she launched her first business, called Moshka, where she made and sold dread hair falls online and at craft fairs and markets throughout Wales.
Early in her modelling career, Kato modelled for Toxico clothing with Ulorin Vex, and later with Chad Michael Ward. [12] [13] In 2004 she began designing and making outfits that had a Neo-Victorian and post-apocalyptic vibe, then modelled them herself and posted them on MySpace. [12] Her inspiration at that time was the 1800s meets Mad Max and Tank Girl , [14] [15] but she didn't know what to call her style until former Abney Park vocalist Magdalene Veen noticed her work and pointed out "how Steampunk" her illustrations and style were. [10] [14] [16]
In 2007, Kato founded the first steampunk clothing company, "Steampunk Couture", [17] producing high-quality, custom-fit clothing and accessories catering specifically to the steampunk genre. [18] Her designs incorporate post-apocalyptic and tribal influences as well as sci-fi, shabby chic [17] [19] and Harajuku/Mori girl elements. [12] [15] One of her more popular ensembles, the "Vex" outfit, was named after model Ulorin Vex, who modelled it on the Steampunk Couture website. [20]
In 2006, Kato, then head of steampunk/industrial musician Doctor Steel's fan club, the "Army of Toy Soldiers", founded Toy Soldiers Unite!, the club's website. [21] Besides running the site as "Sergeant Kato", she also designed all the club's uniforms, as well as creating the security guard and nurse uniforms worn by Steel's stage performers. In 2011, when Dr. Steel retired, Kato turned over control of Toy Soldiers Unite to its current administrators.
In 2010, Kato designed the outfit for the character "Enki" in John Soares' dieselpunk action series, The Danger Element, [22] as well as playing the voice of the car, the "Jitnimobile". [23] In 2013, Flirty Girl Collectibles issued a 1/6 scale collectible action figure of her wearing the "Vex" outfit. [24] [ non-primary source needed ]
In 2014, her Steampunk Couture clothing line became available through DraculaClothing.com. She also consolidated all her businesses and clothing lines under the S Corporation name, "Lambee Co.", and teamed with fashion designer Vera Iam to create two new lines of shoes and boots.
In 2013, Kato started Steamgirl LLC, a multi-media neo-Victorian fashion erotica site and the first subscription site for steampunk erotica. [2] Besides designing the clothing the models on her site wear, she also builds steampunk and neo-Victorian furniture, props, and hardware as well as doing all the hair and makeup for the shoots. [12] Kato is also a writer for Ladies of Steampunk and LoSP Bronze Age magazines, [1] and was featured in LoSP's premiere issue. [25] She also teamed with photographer Chloe Barcelou and launched Mori Girl Clothing, the first Mori Kei clothing company outside Japan. She is currently[ when? ] also working on a graphic novel.
In August 2015, Kato became one of the official judges of the GSN reality television game show series Steampunk'd . [26]
In July 2017 Kato formed a punk/industrial band, "DK-Zero", with Derek Brown of Abney Park. In 2018 they released their debut album, “From Nothing.” Their first full-length music video, "iFeel", passed 100,000 views on YouTube in just three months. Her band took the main stage at Wave Gotik Treffen in 2019, and was also a headliner at Wasteland Weekend later that year. She is no longer with the band.
Fashion is a term used interchangeably to describe the creation of clothing, footwear, accessories, cosmetics, and jewellery of different cultural aesthetics and their mix and match into outfits that depict distinctive ways of dressing as signifiers of social status, self-expression, and group belonging. As a multifaceted term, fashion describes an industry, styles, aesthetics, and trends.
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American "Wild West", where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
A supermodel is a highly paid fashion model who has a worldwide reputation and background in haute couture and commercial modeling. The term became popular in the 1990s. Supermodels usually work for prominent fashion designers and clothing brands. They may have multimillion-dollar contracts, endorsements, and campaigns. Supermodels have branded themselves as household names and worldwide recognition is associated with their modeling careers. They have been on the covers of leading fashion magazines. Claudia Schiffer stated in 2007 that, "In order to become a supermodel one must be on all the covers all over the world at the same time so that people can recognise the girls."
Gothic fashion is a clothing style marked by dark, mysterious, antiquated, homogeneous, and often genderless features. It is worn by members of the goth subculture. Typical gothic fashion includes dyed black hair, exotic hairstyles, dark lipstick and dark clothing. Both male and female goths can wear dark eyeliner, dark nail polish and lipstick for a dramatic effect. Male goths use cosmetics at a higher rate than other men. Styles are often borrowed from the punk fashion and can also draw influence from Victorians and Elizabethan fashion. Goth fashion is sometimes confused with heavy metal fashion and emo fashion.
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Fashion photography is a genre of photography that portrays clothing and other fashion items. This sometimes includes haute couture garments. It typically consists of a fashion photographer taking pictures of a dressed model in a photographic studio or an outside setting. It originated from the clothing and fashion industries, and while some fashion photography has been elevated as art, it is still primarily used commercially for clothing, perfumes and beauty products.
Japanese street fashion refers to a number of styles of contemporary modern clothing in Japan. Created from a mix of both local and foreign fashion brands, Japanese street fashions tend to have their own distinctive style, with some considered to be extreme and avant-garde, with similarities to the haute couture styles seen on European catwalks.
Behati Prinsloo is a Namibian model. In 2008, she became a Pink contract model, and moved on to become a Victoria's Secret Angel in 2009. She walked in ten Victoria's Secret Fashion Shows, and opened consecutive Victoria's Secret Fashion shows in 2014 and 2015.
Steampunk fashion is a subgenre of the steampunk movement in science fiction. It is a mixture of the Victorian era's romantic view of science in literature and elements from the Industrial Revolution in Europe during the 1800s. Steampunk fashion consists of clothing, hairstyling, jewellery, body modification and make-up. More modern ideals of steampunk can include t-shirts with a variety of designs or the humble jeans being accessorised with belts and gun holsters.
Alternative modeling is a branch of the modeling industry that features models who do not conform to mainstream ideals of beauty. Alternative models are often niche-specific, with a personal style that represents subcultures like goth, steampunk, and fetishism. An alternative model may, for example, be tattooed, pierced, or have other body modifications, have distinctively subcultural hair such as being shaved, dyed a distinctively unnatural color, or styled into a mohawk or dreadlocks. Alternative modeling can be clothed or unclothed.
Ulorin Vex is the stage name of Christiane Shillito, an alternative model and artist from Newcastle upon Tyne, England. She lives in Los Angeles, California. Her extensive list of credits include dozens of magazine features and covers, ad campaigns, billboards, and spans all genres from fashion to fetish and art nudes. She's also known for her dynamic and exaggerated posing
Haute couture is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted high-end fashion design. The term haute couture is French, "haute" meaning "high" or "elegant," and "couture" translating to "sewing" or "dressmaking." The term haute couture generally refers to a specific type of upper garment common in Europe during the 16th to the 18th century, or to the upper portion of a modern dress to distinguish it from the skirt and sleeves. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became the centre of a growing industry that focused on making outfits from high-quality, expensive, often unusual fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable of sewers—often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques. Couture translates literally from French as "dressmaking", sewing, or needlework and is also used as a common abbreviation of haute couture and can often refer to the same thing in spirit.
Rion M. Vernon, known by his stage name Doctor Steel is an American musician and internet personality from Los Angeles. He performed on rare occasions with a "backup band", claiming that a fictitious robot band had malfunctioned. Shows incorporated puppetry, multimedia and performances by female members of his street team, The Army of Toy Soldiers. Steel made a brief appearance on The Tonight Show and has had numerous interviews. He was the subject of an article in Wired magazine regarding allegations that Dr. Horrible had copied his style. Steel has frequently been cited as an example of steampunk music.
Emily DiDonato is an American model.
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Thomas Dean Willeford V is a steampunk writer, artist and maker. He is known for his work appearing on television and for his book Steampunk Gear, Gadgets, and Gizmos. He lives and works in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, doing business as Brute Force Studios. His steampunk subculture persona is Lord Archibald "Feathers" Featherstone.
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