Catherine Addai facts for kids
Catherine Addai is a talented fashion designer from Ghana and Canada. She created a popular clothing brand for women called Kaela Kay. She is known for using beautiful African fabrics in her designs.
Catherine Addai's Fashion Journey
Catherine Addai first studied health informatics, which is about using computers to manage health information. She worked as a consultant, helping with important decisions. But she also loved fashion!
In 2013, while she was on maternity leave (time off after having a baby) with her daughter Makaela, she decided to start her own fashion line. At first, she worked from her basement in Mississauga, Canada. She didn't go to fashion school, so she hired skilled seamstresses from Toronto to teach her about making clothes.
By 2017, Catherine loved her fashion work so much that she left her consulting job to focus on her brand full-time. In 2019, she opened her very first store, a "brick-and-mortar" boutique, in North York. This means it was a real shop you could visit, not just an online store. Her brand, Kaela Kay, is named after one of her daughters.
Catherine mostly uses a special fabric called Ankara fabric. This is a colorful West African cotton fabric made with a unique dyeing method. When she first started, some people weren't sure about her designs using this fabric. But her unique style soon became very popular. Famous people like Busy Philipps and Tracy Moore have worn her clothes. This helped her designs reach many more people.
In 2019, Catherine was one of six Canadian women who own businesses featured in a video series called Startup and Slay. This series showed how these women built their successful companies.
Awards and Recognition
Catherine Addai has won several awards for her amazing fashion work.
- In 2018, she received the People's Choice Award for Fashion Designer of the Year from ByBlacks.com.
- She was also named the African Fashion Industry Awards Ladies Wear Designer of the Year three different times.
About Catherine's Life
Catherine Addai was born in Ghana. She lived in Amsterdam until she was three years old. Then, when she was seven, her family moved to Canada. Today, she lives in Toronto. She is a wife and a mother to three young children.
