They were affordable AND terrific AND fabulous.” You could afford them, and happily buy more than one. “It’s an adornment, not an obsession.”Īnd a Kate Spade bag was an adornment that was, crucially, affordable, unlike other iterations of “It” bags whose status seemed to hinge on the price tag.
“I grew up in the Midwest, where you have to have (a fashion item) because you like it, not because you’re supposed to have it,” she told The AP in 2004. She tried jeans, for example, decided they didn’t look good on her, and moved on. Spade liked to say that she wasn’t obsessed with fashion, or interested in trends. Spade was found hanging in the bedroom of her Park Avenue apartment Tuesday morning in an apparent suicide, law enforcement officials said. Indeed, Spade had said it herself: “I hope that people remember me not just as a good businesswoman,” she told Glamour magazine in 2002, “but as a great friend - and a heck of a lot of fun.” Kate Spade attends the 2004 CFDA Fashion Awards at the New York Public Library in New York City. “She was every bit the representation of that brand, and the fun of it all.” “She was always just as happy and delightful as her collection was,” said Fern Mallis, industry consultant and former director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America during Spade’s rise to success in the 1990s. And that only contributed to the sense of shock and loss in the industry upon hearing the news Tuesday that Spade had apparently taken her own life at 55. The same words used so often to describe Kate Spade’s enormously popular handbags - “It” bags that were both aspirational and affordable - were an apt description of the woman herself, say many in the fashion world. Her life and death are a reminder that pain doesn’t discriminate. “I will never forget the first Kate Spade bag I got for Christmas in college,” Jenna Bush Hager tweeted. And she changed her name to Katherine Noel Frances Valentine Brosnahan Spade. Meanwhile, Spade and her husband - brother of comedian David Spade - started a new handbag company a few years ago, Frances Valentine. She walked away from the company in 2007, a year after it was acquired from the Neiman Marcus Group for $125 million by the company then known as Liz Claiborne Inc.Ĭoach, now known as Tapestry, bought the Kate Spade brand last year for $2.4 billion, seeking to broaden its appeal. “As an accessory, a great bag that takes the outfit somewhere else is interesting,” she told the AP in a 2000 interview. Spade won multiple awards from the Council of Fashion Designers of America and was named a “giant of design” by House Beautiful magazine. It’s an adornment, not an obsession.”įrom the original boxy handbags, she expanded into shoes, luggage and other accessories, as well as a home line, stationery, and three books. “For our customers, fashion is in the right place in their life. “I grew up in the Midwest, where you have to have it (a fashion item) because you like it, not because you’re supposed to have it,” she told the AP in 2004.
She started the company based on six shapes of bags that she thought every working woman needed. She was working as an accessories editor at Mademoiselle magazine when she launched her company with husband Andy in their New York apartment in 1993. Kate Spade was born Katherine Brosnahan and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. “Her creative light and bright mind will be greatly missed,” Hall wrote in a statement.
Neva Hall, executive vice president at Neiman Marcus Stores, said the news was devastating. Julia Curry, a spokeswoman for the company, said that “Kate will be dearly missed” and “our thoughts are with Andy and the entire Spade family at this time.” The company she founded and later sold, Kate Spade New York, now has over 140 retail shops and outlet stores across the U.S. The medical examiner will perform an autopsy.Ī crime scene truck was parked outside Spade’s building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and barriers had been set up to keep back reporters and gawkers who were arriving to the building. It’s not clear how long she had been dead.