Katia Kulawick Assante

 
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Katia is one of the coolest people I’ve met and, of course, on my list of women I want to be when I grow up. She’s an author, a journalist, a world traveler, a wife and mum who currently splits her time today between homes in Corsica, the French Alps and Paris. Her career has spanned from world traveling rock journalist to Paris based co-founder of Sport & Style and Features Director for Vogue Hommes International to freelance journalist and writer. Today she writes for Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, and the Louis Vuitton City Guides. While she’s mastered being able to mix with any crowd from rock musicians to the haute couture fashion scene to the sailing world, its her genuine and limitless curiosity to learn about people, places and things and her commitment to following her heart and what speaks to her soul that I truly admire.

It all began in Strasbourg, France. At 18, Katia was working for a local radio station and planning on moving to Paris to go to journalism school when the editor of Rock Sound magazine, a French publication covering music, approached her about doing a test article with them. Her first article worked and she started traveling the world as a music journalist averaging about 200 days on the road in a post-Nirvana rock world. She lived out of a suitcase on beer and cigarettes and loved it. It wasn’t her passion or knowledge of music that made her career as a music journalist successful. It was her endless curiosity and genuine interest in these wild and crazy people and artist who she was asked to meet, interview and capture in words so that the world could know them better. One of her favorite movements was getting to interview David Bowie at his 50th Birthday concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

After making a name for herself as a rock journalist, through unexpected opportunities she started to make her way into the luxury space and to make Paris her first home base in years. First, she co-founded Sport & Style, a men’s luxury magazine supplement offered in L’Equipe, the only sport daily newspaper in France, which she ran for 10 years. Then, while at Sport & Style, she was asked to be the features director of Vogue Hommes International. Both publications gave her access to reporting on fashion, design, architecture, locations, and experiences for the sophisticated, celebrity and elite. Katia had gone from no-status rising rock journalist to status for days luxury journalist and editor interviewing explorers, celebrities, and creatives, as well as written about top travel destinations and parties people dream of attending.

During her time as an editor in the luxury space, she met her adventurous and fascinating husband on an assignment she almost canceled. They soon had a son and Katia began looking at ways to have the best of all worlds she loves - professional, mother, and wife. The game plan she and her husband have created is uniquely their own. Home base for the family is in the Alps. They each have professional projects they work on independently taking them to either primarily Paris for her or Corsica for him. They also work together on a professional project that allows them to create together and spend guaranteed time together, the Corsica Classic. While spending most of her time as a freelance writer and journalist, every summer Katia sails on the most beautiful classic yachts during the Corsica Classic, a vintage yacht regatta celebrating its 10th birthday in 2019.

Either in the rock scene or the luxury scene, Katia has always felt a bit like an outsider which has given her an edge to her journalism. To truthfully see the world she’s writing about from its edge, allows her to simultaneously see how it contrasts with the world at large while also revealing universal truths about humanity. Being in but not of the worlds she writes about plus her genuine interest & curiosity in the world and in people, creates space for beautiful storytelling that is uniquely relatable and satisfying to the consumer/reader.

To connect with, support or collaborate with Katia you can:

Check out some of Katia’s articles and publications here:

Learn more about the Corsica Classic via press articles here:

Thomas ClaesenLadies We LoveComment