Isibella Karnstein – The Château
“In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this”….Terry Pritchett
“The Smallest feline is a masterpiece”…. Leonardo da Vinci
“ The Château is the first ever online magazine dedicated to cat girls and the kitten play lifestyle founded in 2015. The vision of the Château – Cat Girl Manor is to be a safe playground where women would be able to feel empowered, confidentially express their kitten selves and lifestyles, and to be the top representation of kitten models around the world.”
The world shifts and the climate changes and we no longer have a holy passport to protect us…. therefore, humanity cries out for something unique, playful, diverse and brimming with joy. The Château is a spiritual Kitty Cat quest and God himself propels the chariot of fire.
The Château has a massive online presence as well as a much desired public events presence. Each month the magazine brings the creme de la creme of kitten girls through photos, reviews and lifestyle articles. The Château itself is a private mansion located in Colorado and is known for hosting kitten play. It has been described as “the Playboy Mansion of the kitten play community.” The manor has recently been featured on Viceland television.
Doused with curiosity and intrigue I spoke with founder Isibella Karnstein, The Madam of The Château regarding the Manor, the Models and the Mayhem……I was crushed by the weight of her devotion and her desire to promote the positive energy of her models to the wider world. The seductive alchemy of art transforms private anguish into a narrative of truth……
What inspired The Château?
Originally, I am from the UK and living in London. I did a lot of events and promotion from there, but I was kind of a bit unfulfilled by that and I ended up moving to America. I was doing events over here as well and specifically living in Colorado at the time. I wanted a female empowerment vibe and a desire to dress up, especially because a lot of girls don’t have an excuse to dress up anymore. Growing up I was influenced by things like Playboy and the magazines at that time. I wanted something that was still very sexy but by women for women, but still not in that traditional vibe of old school glamour. I like long gowns or glamorous lingerie and parties with champagne and cake and dressing up and just basically having fun for the sake of having fun.
You have a huge social media presence what do you think made the Château catch on so quickly?
That’s a great question…I think that because it is so unique in a sense that anytime you see someone that’s doing something so unique like this gorgeous mansion and these girls running around dressed up in corsets and having fun, I think that catches people’s attention. Everything we have done so far has been through natural growth, it’s just capturing people’s interest. They want to kind of live vicariously through this. People want to follow the events of these girls, these models going off and doing all these different things. When things like Vice come in, it’s because they want to know more about these things, it’s really cool. Then they come into the Château space and we tell the story.
Can anyone apply to be a model, and how would they do so?
There’s an application form. So, we get about 900 applications a month and I accept roughly 5 to 10 girls a month. It’s a long process that I go through, beginning with are you wearing cat ears or not? I disposed of the ones that aren’t so that’s the easiest and it takes about 48 hours to go through all the applications. It’s kind of like when you get accepted to University. You get one of those beautiful frames with a certificate and there’s kind of a leveling system, everybody mentions the mansion, the mansion, but it’s predominantly an online magazine. We have over 475 models worldwide from all different countries in all different places, and we have the Château which is in many different places as well. The application process is a bit lumpy but it’s worth it. It can be very rewarding in the aspect that if it’s for us they don’t get in they work on their portfolio and they try again and then when they get in it’s very rewarding for them I think.
It’s kind of like a status sort of thing….
Yeah it is because a lot of it is built on the principle of exclusivity which is kind of like if you create something that is alluring and exclusive it’s more attractive to the public. That’s why people have secret clubs and memberships to create that allure. That is why I like to be selective about it while still being diverse in that selection process. It’s good to have a nice broad selection of different kinds of women from diverse backgrounds, cultures, luxe, body shapes and ages.
That’s what I really liked about it, that everyone was so different.
All shapes and sizes are beautiful. Women come in different forms.
You also go out and do public events as well?
Yes. Before the pandemic came along, we did the New Orleans Vampiric Masquerade. We rented out the entire zoo in New Orleans and had girls with huge ball gowns and men in tuxedos and had over 2000 people come. It was great fun, a really good event. We do a lot of Halloween stuff, and very Vampiric dark stuff. We do a lot of Château events in Las Vegas. The Château night club which is out there, they love us. We partner all the time and do collaboration events. We always cross promote anyway because we have the same name.
It sounds like you have a lot of fun?
Yeah, if you’re going to live your life you might as well do it in the best way possible.
Where do you want to be in five years?
Hopefully rolling along. I feel like if I could be anywhere five years from now it would just be being happy, healthy and successful and supporting the people around me in my network. As long as I am doing what I love. Finances don’t matter to me that much, it’s the creative process and the passion put into it and that’s the important part of it for me. I believe that with my creativity I can go anywhere I like. That’s an important thing. That’s power!
I agree and I don’t do anything that isn’t fun.
Exactly. It can be soul sucking and so draining. You get bored and you feel like you’re stuck in a rut. Yeah you can work a 9-to-5 job sitting behind a desk all day or you can do fabulous events in Hollywood with costumes and rock stars. That sounds so much better. I’m still learning all of this Hollywood stuff. Vice came to us to do some documentaries and we really enjoyed it and they thought we really should have our own TV show. So, faI spent several months learning the process of script treatment and writing and how that all works for a reality show. My father is big in the film world, but film is very different from television. They are two different beasts. My father works at Pinewood studios in James Bond movies and I’m just trying to do this reality TV show which is entirely different. I got the pitch together and kind of a little bit of a pilot and concept. The thing is you need an agent because you can’t just walk into Netflix or HBO and tell them that you’d love to pitch your show, even if it’s a great idea. Being stuck inside nearly drove me mad and that’s when I began to work on the reality TV show.
That’s a hit show in the making.
It touches on the female empowerment stuff which is very hot right now. It touches on diversity which is a very good topic as well right now. It is female run and owned while still being sexy, modern and empowering. It is also encompassing some of that old world glamour ….people want escapism. They want to go to a fantasy world. They want to sit down and pretend because it is a lot easier than the real world. That’s the magic of it so I think the goal with the reality TV show is to create something that is still in a magical kind of world while still being in the real world.
It’s still obtainable. These are events you can actually go to and experience yourself. So, it’s still obtainable but it’s also the fantasy element of all these beautiful creatures floating from place to place and having an amazing time. Here they are drinking champagne and living the life….and you can be part of this adventure. If you have the passion you can make anything work with a strong creative force behind it. For example, Disney World is one of the greatest empires on the planet. There is great power to fantasy and playfulness, sweetness and good. One thing I really want to push on this is that a lot of the reality shows have all that cattiness, (no pun intended), all that drama, but I think we are now in an era where it’s more about uplifting each other and celebrating diversity instead. Making it approachable to the public in a warm fuzzy way…..
Follow The Chateau on the web:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catgirlmanor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_chateau/
https://www.instagram.com/isibellakarnstein/
Magazine: https://thechateau.org
