Cata Freer: Making Her Luck in Modeling, and Elsewhere

Modeling is one of those careers where you can get lucky. Assuming you meet certain requirements, you can be sitting one day having a latte when in walks an executive from a famous modeling agency. And lo and behold, you’re exactly what that agent has been looking for. This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

Then there’s the more conventional route. People you know tell you, or show you, you can model and you make an effort to break into the business. The effort may take the form of headshots, a reel, letters to agencies from sponsors, showing up at casting calls, or all of the above.

For Cata Freer, a Costa-Rican beauty, modeling ran in the family. Cata had aunts who were models and they set an example she could follow. Her striking good looks won her her first jobs and she soon became a sought-after commodity in the international advertising world, jetting from one country to another for shoot after shoot.

Getting back to luck, probably the hardest way to succeed in modeling is to make your own. The profession is completely dependent on other people’s assessment of you– as well as on the flavor of the moment, staying power, age, height, ethnicity, and so on. Plus, when competing for a job, you’ve entered a zero-sum game. One person will get it; everyone else, which will almost always include many other talented and beautiful people, won’t.

During COVID, many models and other professionals who traveled as a part of their career, were unsure as to what the future would hold due to pandemic related restrictions. As Cata didn’t know if she might not get stuck and be unable to leave wherever she traveled to, she resolved to get creative and find new outlets to earn money.

Always an active and positive person, with several languages under her belt and a profound interest in environmental issues, Cata, rather than simply waiting for Covid to lapse, turned her attention to social media. Using Tik Tok as her platform, she created an online presence that, while it began partly as a joke, quickly took hold. She acquired followers. More modeling agencies noticed her. Cata realized that she was on to something and began to exploit it. For the second time in her young career, she took what might have seemed an obstacle and turned it to her advantage. While still working as a model, Cata became a content creator and an influencer.

As a sign of her success, Cata now creates content for multiple brands, including Kim Kardashian’s Skims, Khloe Kardashian’s Good American, Agent Provocateur, Guess, Honey Birdette, Maxim Mexico, Mae Paris, Mercedes Benz, Revice Denim, Revolve, Stradivarious, and Steve Madden. Choosing not to stop here, Cata’s opened another front, appearing in music videos with such Latin American artists as Alejandro Sanz, Nicky Jam, and Marc Anthony. And as if this wasn’t enough, Cata, currently becoming proficient in French, has started her own clothing and accessory line, called Chat Noir, geared to travel accessories, lingerie, and workout togs.

Her very evident professional success aside, here are a few other things to know about this beautiful and interesting person. She loves cars and says she can drive anything from a motorcycle to a race car. She’s known for being, not just upbeat, but empathic. And along with being an influencer and model, she aspires to bring her own brand of joyful positivity and environmental consciousness wherever her career takes her.

We admire this ambition of Cata’s as we admire the energy and hard work that has allowed her to make her own luck. We look forward to seeing what she does and where she’ll go from here.