Majestikk Apparel, founded by Kathleen ‘Kat’ Kitchen, designs a wide selection of quality rhinestone jackets, t-shirts, hoodies, and blankets and makes custom rhinestone apparel for all occasions. In honor of the brand’s 10th anniversary, Kat shares her journey from overcoming breast cancer to her greater mission of spreading love and healing through self-expression.
One fateful day, Kat’s son accidentally walked into her room. She was changing outfits when he noticed a bump under her arm. This marked the beginning of a miraculous journey of resilience, faith, and connectedness with the larger world. Her son’s observation led her to the hospital, then to a breast cancer diagnosis, then to an operation room.
A wave of serendipity washed over her on the day of the operation. The three medical professionals that she met before being put under – two nurses and an anesthesiologist – became good luck charms for the operation. Both nurses had her nickname, ‘Kat,’ and her anesthesiologist was wearing the same watch she was! Kat might have been scared, but she knew she would not only survive but thrive after her surgery. Sure enough, Kat awoke after the operation, but her journey was not over yet.
During post-operative care in the hospital, Kat was visited by a nurse who said: “Look, you’ve got to get out of this bed. We have to walk the hall. Otherwise, you are going to die here.” She remembers vividly how the nurse pushed her to begin the healing process with short walks around the hall, no matter how much it hurt. The next day, when she asked the staff where that nurse was, they said there was no nurse. “They had seen me walking by myself and were trying to understand how I’d done that,” she says.
“I almost said, ‘You’re joking, right?’” Kat recalls, “That’s when I knew. Okay, God, I’m good. I’m not here to be hurt or die. I’ve been put here to experience some bigger journey that You’ve got me on.” When Kat went through chemotherapy and radiation, she lost her hair but kept every other aspect of herself. With no other common side effects like nausea and fatigue, Kat’s recovered self was essentially indistinguishable from her life before. She was eating healthily, going on 30-mile bike rides, and had returned to her job at full capacity.
Her doctors couldn’t believe their eyes and neither could the rest of Minnesota. “When I got out of the hospital, my doctors referred me to some agencies. News channels started interviewing me, I was being written about in the papers, and malls were asking me to model their clothes. It just kept snowballing,” Kat says. “I had just survived cancer and, suddenly, I was the healthiest girl around, being bodacious and posing for cameras.” Kat’s spirit and resilience had become an inspiration to her community and other survivors, and she was keen to pay her gratitude forward.
Currently, Kat counsels and strengthens survivors of breast and prostate cancer as part of her philosophy. During recovery, her natural inner strength had been further fortified by the will she found to keep living her best life. Even on the day she received her diagnosis, there was no stopping her mission. The medicine her soul healed her body with was now a shining light for others to follow, and it was majestic to witness.
Some time into remission in 2009, Kat and her daughter walked by a record store that was selling Michael Jackson’s entire discography for a dollar and 52 cents each. “It sounds bizarre, but for some reason, I bought each of those albums. The guy at the register laughed at me and told me I was insane. The next day, Michael Jackson was pronounced dead,” she shares. This led her to a family trip to the Neverland ranch in California, where she saw a woman selling rhinestone apparel as souvenirs. Kat explains, “I wanted a keepsake so I bought a t-shirt. I went home thinking, ‘I could really do something like this, but better.’”
Kat got home and immediately started designing rhinestone clothes. “I wanted to make sure that the things I created were of the highest quality, from the material to the fidelity of my screenprints.” Because of her commitment to making beautiful apparel that anyone would be proud to express themselves with, she procured a stall at the Minnesota State Fair, successfully selling custom bejeweled sports jerseys and t-shirts.
This experience established her position as a rhinestone designer and rising entrepreneur, and it was now time to christen her business. Together with her daughter, she came up with Majestikk Apparel. Only afterward did she find out that Michael Jackson’s best friend had the same name. “Everything was coming full circle.” Kat recalls, “It was like Michael was saying, ‘I’m getting out of here, but I’m going to leave you with something first, Kat.’”
The fabric of synchronicity and spirit that Kat was building around her career was only possible because of her bigger mission to spread love and healing throughout her community. In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, Kat felt her calling come into being. During the pandemic, she set up a kiosk in a mall to promote her work on custom celebrity apparel. The mall was practically empty, but people started coming up to her. “I started getting people who wanted me to make rhinestone clothes for their children who had passed from gun violence,” she states.
Before she knew it, Kat had become a community leader, listening to heartbreaking stories of parents of shooting victims and counseling them through her experiences of resilience and strength of spirit. Her rhinestone clothes had become a symbol of hope and perseverance for a community in grief.
Majestikk Apparel continues its journey of love and healing and aims to establish a future fund for cancer survivors transitioning to life in remission. Kat’s strength and connection to her community make her steadfast in her mission to help others find freedom in self-expression and creativity. As Kat states, “A diagnosis is not the end of your life. I want to inspire people to go and be beautiful, and to continue achieving their dreams.”
The post Love and Healing with Majestikk Apparel: Kat Kitchen’s Journey from Surviving Breast Cancer to Rhinestone Royalty appeared first on LA Weekly.
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