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56
winter
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spr ing
Kate McHale was born in Hawaii in 1981 but her family – dad
Jim
McHale
(a contemporary artist), mom
Trish
(a teacher at Laguna Blanca
School), and sister
Ana
(a student at Fashion Institue of Design in Los
Angeles) settled in Montecito in 1988. Kate attended Our Lady of Mt.
Carmel, Laguna Blanca, Santa Barbara High School, and Otis College of
Art and Design.
Kate says she has had a love for fashion for as long as she can remember.
As a high-school senior at SBHS, Kate created and designed a “Gene
Doll” that took First Place Overall in the national competition of The
Gene Marshall Collection of Dolls. Kate also received an Ashton-Drake
Young Designer of the Americas Award.
Kate defines her style as “classic,” and says that sense of style was
nurtured by both sets of grandparents, who lived on the East Coast.
Grandfather Jim McHale was a three-time member of the U.S. Walker
Cup Golf Team and was good enough in 1950 to advance to the semi-
finals of the British Amateur at St. Andrews in Scotland; he finished as the
low amateur in the U.S. Open in Merion in 1950; three years before that,
McHale set U.S. Open single-round and nine-hole records at the St. Louis
Country Club. Jim McHale was also known as a man that set the standard
for golf fashion.
Kate’s grandmother, Mary McHale lived in Philadelphia and Palm
Beach and was another early fashion influence. Kate’s great-grandfather,
Matt McCloskey, was an Ambassador to Ireland and chairman of the
Democratic Financial Committee under the Kennedy administration; he
was also a major developer in Palm Beach. One Royal Way, a landmark in
Palm Beach, was designed by McCloskey. Its construction set the tone for
the oncoming wave of modern condominium residences and is
cited as a link between modernity and the elegance of yesterday.
Kate’s fashion influence, one might say, is “Early Palm Beach,”
inspired perhaps by Slim Aarons, whose photographs capture
the Palm Beach lifestyle of the 1920s and ‘30s and its era of style
and grace.
A Generational Fashion Sense
Owner-designer
Kate McHale