Aster House is named for a quiet piece of botany: an aster isn't one flower. What reads as a single bloom is dozens of tiny flowers working in concert — each one small, each one necessary. We think brands work the same way. The strategy, the photography, the storefront, the hundred small decisions nobody notices one at a time — they either add up to one clear thing, or they don't. (The name also means "star" in Greek. We don't mind that one bit.) And the House is the fashion kind — our founder came up through apparel design, where a house isn't a building, it's a point of view.
We're a creative direction studio for e-commerce brands — the strategy, the photography, and the Shopify build that decide whether a brand reads as the leader in its category. It's the same trick the flower pulls: a hundred small parts, arranged so carefully they read as one.
The work behind Aster House has earned coverage in more than 100 outlets since 2018, including Architectural Digest, NYT Wirecutter, Oprah Daily, The Strategist (NY Mag), Domino, HGTV, House Beautiful, Elle Decor, Better Homes & Gardens, Good Housekeeping, GQ, The Cut, Cup of Jo, Sight Unseen, and Dwell. Our founder was also quoted in Forbes (2024) as a design authority in "How To Create A Tablescape, According To Design Pros," alongside pretti.cool co-founder Jeff Gilmer.Explore our engagement options →
Photo by Joseph West.
Kathrine (Zeren) Gilmer has spent close to twenty years turning product into brand. She trained at the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA, Apparel Design, 2008) and started in fashion — designing women's woven collections at Abercrombie & Fitch, where she learned the discipline that still underpins her work: translating trend and market data into product lines that have to balance cost, craft, and brand.
She's been a founder and operator ever since. In 2014 she launched Kathrine Zeren, a men's accessories and home-fragrance line funded on Kickstarter, and ran it end-to-end through 2020. In 2017 she co-founded pretti.cool, the small-batch homegoods brand she built end-to-end — Shopify, newsletter, linesheet, packaging, and production — plus standing up its wholesale channel on Faire and coordinating the brand's trade shows over the years.
Today, she leads DTC and creative for a venture studio's portfolio of five brands — including J.Adams, where the work delivered 3.6x revenue and 2.5x conversion in eight months — and advising with The Ready Network. Aster House is where all of it comes together: the technical foundation, an operator's instinct for what actually sells, and an eye that's been shaping brands for two decades.
She's been a founder and operator ever since. In 2014 she launched Kathrine Zeren, a men's accessories and home-fragrance line funded on Kickstarter, and ran it end-to-end through 2020. In 2017 she co-founded pretti.cool, the small-batch homegoods brand she built end-to-end — Shopify, newsletter, linesheet, packaging, and production — plus standing up its wholesale channel on Faire and coordinating the brand's trade shows over the years.
Today, she leads DTC and creative for a venture studio's portfolio of five brands — including J.Adams, where the work delivered 3.6x revenue and 2.5x conversion in eight months — and advising with The Ready Network. Aster House is where all of it comes together: the technical foundation, an operator's instinct for what actually sells, and an eye that's been shaping brands for two decades.