KATIE ROSE: JEWELRY, SOCKS FROM WASTE & HOLDING SPACE FOR DYING PEOPLE
She is 34, young-beautiful-working at a successful digital platform. She mentions she wants a beer at my jewelry stand in Las Vegas, and keeps talking. A mutual Brit introduced us (“she might want to look at your stuff”). After inspecting JN jewelry we keep chatting. At one point she observes like she is assessing me and spills out that in her spare time she helps people to die. I am a bit appalled and confused but as always my curiosity takes over. Right away I need to learn more. She looks so alive and I want you to get to know her. Please, meet Katie Rose.
Jewelry buyer for luxury online store 1stdibs but also a death doula, before COVID-19 she was volunteering at the local hospice providing guided meditations and visualizations for patients at the end of the life, now she does it digitally.
Katie Rose in the woods wearing the “dawn” shirt made from recycled cotton.
“I am a member of End of Life Doula UK, and am trained to create Advance care plans, including advance decisions to refuse treatment, help people to organize funeral plans, and appoint power of attorney in case they lose mental capacity in the future. If anyone would like a support with this, please, get in touch. I also do a lot of self-care work and am very in touch with how much I can take on, and know my limits and set boundaries with clients when we first speak.” Holding space for people at the end of life.
“A vintage bathroom graveyard I love to visit.” What is your favorite place you will go first, after quarantine ends?
“DO NOT WORRY THAT YOUR LIFE IS TURNING UP-SIDE DOWN” socks from PET bottles.
“One of my favorite rings is this lady bought from an antique dealer in New York. Original Art Nouveau piece and she fell in love with my Indian chief worn on the other hand (not in the picture).”
Katie Rose in Jaipur at the Amber fort in January 2020 right before the virus attack.
SOUL’S SKIN natural yarn dying process by Akane Studio in India.
Katie Rose lives in South East London, in an ex-council flat done up in the 70’s style by herself. She likes remodeling and thinks it’s a good project for self-isolation.
“I have always thought that death and dying is an important element of life. And that in the West we run from this subject. Therefore, I decided that I wanted to be part of the death positive movement to change the way we perceive it - it is something so natural and inevitable.
The hardest about the role is seeing people suffering, but if you can be there to ease some of that, it can be an impactful gift to them at a time when they are going back home.”
“Anxiety can be so unarming, it is great to talk about it.”
When I ask Katie Rose why helping others eases your own anxiety and well-being, she says “sharing is the key to healing. By speaking your truth you are affirming the importance of your story. Every time you tell your story and someone else who cares bears witness to it, you turn off the body's stress responses, flipping off toxic stress hormones, like cortisol and epinephrine and flipping on relaxation responses that release healing hormones like oxytocin, dopamine, nitric oxide, and endorphins. This brings down anxiety. So by sharing, I am healing and hopefully expanding others to show it is OK to suffer from anxiety and accept it as part of who you are.”
“Anxiety came into play in my early thirties. I have certain catalysts that trigger it and it is not always possible to function when a bad attack happens, as it can affect my breathing, my ability to speak clearly, and my balance. I get waves of anxiety throughout the weeks and months and sometimes the tide is calm for a while and sometimes I have a stormy week. All I can do is go with it and learn ways to cope and hopefully sail towards more calm waters. But this may never really leave me.”
Katie Rose’s brand RE- clothing founded with Ateev Anand based in Mumbai is made from recycled yarn using eco printing and dyes. “We invite the wearer to reconnect with the earth and themselves.”
5 ways that help her cope right now >
“Going deeper and being curious - I have done CBT therapy for my anxiety and it did give me some tools I am thankful for but I can’t say it cured me. What I took from it was > challenging the anxious feeling and negative thoughts that it may stem from:
Why do I feel like this?
What am I afraid of?
What’s the worst that can happen?
The deeper you get the more you come into contact with intense rooted triggers and shadows, which might need work and might never fully leave you. Surrendering to the honest reasons why you feel anxious is the key to overcoming it, leaning-in rather than away, and seeing it as an alarm bell, a friend. Clothing and feeding your demons rather than running from them can help to alleviate the anxiety and the more we heal our deep-rooted fears, shame, and guilt, the more control over them we have. My anxiety has shown me so much about myself, it helps me to get back to my most authentic self and it gives me signals when I am off track. This is something to embrace.
Letting go of control - I used to want to control my anxiety and the more I tried the less I had a hold on it. As soon as I accepted this was something I have to deal with, and started to tell people, my work, friends and family, and explained that I had no control, the more control I had. Anxiety can be caused by our old caveman brain seeing something as a threat and wanting to run. We can either fight, flight, or play dead. If we over-analyze it, we become more self-conscious. If we just let it be, it tends to pass. Breathing slowly through the nose causes the parasympathetic system to help us to relax, if that’s all you can do, that’s perfect. You do not need to try. Just breathe, acknowledge what is happening and accept it > it is there to teach you something.
Singing exercises and being angry: I went to a voice coach at one point to help with my public speaking. She taught me some basic voice exercises like how to warm up your voice in different ways. We then sang to each other in funny voices and then angry voices and this really helped to switch up the energy in my body, lungs and helped me to step into myself and out of my anxiety. If I feel anxious before a meeting or somebody I need to speak to, I do these exercises and it always helps. Hearing your voice being angry also can be quite calming, as women, I think, we are often told to lower our voice, not act hysterical, when actually it's freeing and that’s what we need.
Looking at the trees: connecting with nature. I usually find myself when I have a bad anxiety attack walking and at the time I do not always know where I am going. I can sometimes go into a bit of a daze, and usually when I come back to myself I am under a tree or sitting / lying on the grass. Grounding in nature and connecting with the matrix, which is all around us, gives me a sense of calm. Watching the trees also has the same effect, seeing the leaves move and watching that spread throughout the branches. Watching that movement caught up from tree to tree is one of my main tricks throughout the day to stay calm.
DEATH MEDITATION: I started doing these around a year ago while reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. This is something Buddhist monks do daily. For me, by engaging in a relationship with my mortality, I started to notice I was more deeply connected with the present moment and how precious it is. It started falling into place what I wanted in my life and what experiences I wanted to call in. I have started to facilitate my own death meditations.
Now, let’s talk about another thing that Katie is working on > RE- project:
“Currently we are offering socks with the idea that this is the seed we plant at the foot of a person to encourage them to rethink their entire wardrobe and how they consume. They are made from 100% recycled cotton waste and recycled polyester from PET bottles. They come in many colors from terracotta orange, forest green and sunflower yellow. We also make character pieces, for example, our recycled cotton “dawn” shirt with the lines of a sunrise and a sunset.
“Doing laundry in my garden.” In time of self-isolation this chore can be very soothing, if you do it with intention.
Her stylish cat Sydney.
One of her jewelry clients: Goshwara.
Yellow theme at vintage market.
Margate, South East England in summer. Katie Rose grew up in Hastings and adores the sea.
“It’s soul’s skin,” says Katie Rose about her newest project founded with her friend Ateev Anand based in Mumbai.
Cafe / art space in Peckman where she has spent some of her summer nights is located at Bold Tendencies former multi-storey carpark that runs the annual sculpture show, performances, and open air cinema, as well as hosts Frank's Cafe, the Campari bar with the best views in London.
“Everyone should think about the end of life planning and have this in place, even if they are young and healthy.”
Her Polish grandmother Regina moved to England in 1945 after the war. She was a dress maker and became a hoarder of clothes in later life due to her trauma and unresolved pain from the war. She inspired the first collection of clothes Katie Rose made from vintage fabrics from her house. She taught KR to make do and mend and not to waste, she also taught her to try to work-out trauma, so it does not consume you.
In the woods in London wearing a silk eco-printed scarf. “I gifted it to my granny for her 99th birthday this year.”