Mullingar’s Katie is fashioning an exciting life in Los Angeles

Making headlines on an almost daily basis is the scale of the spread of the coronavirus infection Covid-19 in the United States.

Weathering out the storm in Los Angeles is fashion designer Katie Cochrane, originally from Mullingar.

For Katie – like so many people the world over – the working day is no longer spent in a shared work environment, but at home in her own apartment.

“I never worked remotely up to this, and in this job, we are usually very hands-on, but with the situation, we have to work remotely. It’s similar to Ireland with the ‘it’s safer at home’ order; we are only supposed to leave the house for essential needs, or going to the shop or getting some physical exercise.”

Katie, whose parents are John (manager of The Greville Arms Hotel) and Angela, says that despite the growing crisis worldwide, she didn’t feel under pressure to rush home to Ireland.

“I would not want to go home and not be able to work.

“It didn’t feel that unsafe here. The numbers are a lot lower in Los Angeles than they are in New York. But the New York numbers are just out of control.”

A lot of that is down to what might effectively be summarised as a mixture of geography and lifestyle. “In LA, people probably travel more in their cars, whereas in New York, people are much more on top of each other in comparison,” Katie says, pointing to the fact that in New York, so much commuting is done by public transport, using systems such as the subway.

By contrast: “In LA it’s kind of isolated: you get into a car by yourself.”

As elsewhere, the concept of “social distancing” is now firmly entrenched in the lifestyles of Los Angeles.

“It wasn’t being done that well in the beginning but now people have got quite good at it. There are dots on the floors of shops as you line up to pay: there are efforts to ensure everyone is spread out more. It’s making people more conscious. They are lining people up to go into stores so that they don’t have too many people in at the one time.”

Wearing masks or other face-coverings is also becoming more commonplace: “Our mayor recommended last week that everyone cover their face with non-medical masks because they don’t want to take supplies from medical teams, so pretty much everybody is covering their face with a bandanna or a scarf or something.

“Generally, I’m not one for exercise, but in my job I would run around the office quite a lot because it’s in a big warehouse and you have to do a lot of movement within work, so I am finding it difficult that I am confined in my apartment without walking around. I’ve been doing walks in my neighbourhood to stretch my legs.

“Older people have the same sort of recommendations as Ireland, just they haven’t used the phrase ‘cocooning’.”

Katie has been living in the US for seven years. She spent three years in New York, and four years moved to LA, where she designs clothes for the retail fashion industry, targeting the 40+ market.

Katie’s clothes sell in major chains, including Macy’s, and she admits she gets a kick when while watching TV or passing through an airport she spots someone wearing one of her designs.

Katie studied design at the Limerick College of Fashion and Design after her Leaving Cert at Loreto College Mullingar. To an extent, fashion was a natural choice: her grandfather Matt Cochrane ran a gents’ outfitters in Moate; her uncle Danny and his wife Olivia (of Olivia Danielle) have both carried on the tradition and her cousin runs “Danny’s” in Limerick.

“I moved to New York pretty much after college, in June, initially for five months, and then I came back to Mullingar until July the next year and I worked in Vodafone in Mullingar.

“I then moved to America after that and I’ve been here since,” says Katie.

Asked which she prefers – New York or LA – Katie pauses for a second: “I probably prefer New York: there is a good buzz; the city is alive, there is a great hustle and bustle – it’s an amazing city.

“But then Los Angeles has its benefits, it’s beautiful, you can go hiking in the mountains or go to the sea all on the same day,”

There aren’t as many Irish around Los Angeles: “In New York there were loads, but in Los Angeles, not as many although I’m sure if you are in different neighbourhoods there might be – I know there is a community on the west side and they play Gaelic, they have the ‘Gaelic Cougars’.”

Katie is in regular contact with home. She returns a number of times a year, recently at Christmas: “I don’t think my parents are worried about me because they feel I’m probably settled here and they’re happy for me to be wherever I am; and I not worried because I know that they are taking precautions at home, that they are doing everything they can.

“There is enough worry at the moment so anything you can do to avoid additional stresses is good.”