Buying a Kate Spade handbag was a coming-of-age ritual for a generation of American women. The designer created an accessories empire that helped define the look of an era. The purses she made became a status symbol and a token of adulthood.
Ms. Spade, who was found dead Tuesday in what police characterized as a suicide by hanging, worked as an editor before making the leap to designing, constructing her first sketches from paper and Scotch tape. She would come to attach her name to a bounty of products, and ideas: home goods and china and towels and so much else, all of it poised atop the thin line between accessibility and luxury.
One of the first of a wave of American women contemporary designers who emerged in the 1990s, she built a brand on the appeal of clothes and accessories that made shoppers smile. She embodied her own aesthetic, with her proto-1960s bouffant, nerd glasses and playful grin. Beneath that image was a business mind that understood the opportunities in building a lifestyle brand, almost before the term officially existed.
Her name became a shorthand for the cute, clever bags that were an instant hit with cosmopolitan women in the early stages of their careers and, later, young girls — status symbols of a more attainable, all-American sort than a Fendi clutch or Chanel bag. Ms. Spade became the very visible face of her brand and paved the way for female lifestyle designers like Tory Burch or Jenna Lyons of J. Crew.
New York (CNN) Kate Brosnahan Spade, who created an iconic, accessible handbag line that bridged Main Street and high-end fashion, hanged herself in an apparent suicide Tuesday at her Manhattan apartment, according to New York Police Department sources.
Police responded at 10:10 a.m. after Spade was found by her housekeeper, NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said. A suicide note was found at the scene, he said. Spade addressed her daughter in the note, according to two NYPD sources. Spade's husband also is referenced in the note, according to one of the sources.
The designer, 55, started Kate Spade New York in 1993 and opened her first shop in the city three years later, the company's website states
"Debuting with just six silhouettes, she combined sleek, utilitarian shapes and colorful palettes in an entirely new way," the site says.
Best known for its colorful handbags, Kate Spade New York has more than 140 retail shops and outlet stores across the United States and more than 175 stores internationally, the site states.
Over time, she distanced herself from her business.
In 1999, she and her husband, Andy Spade, sold 56% of the brand to Neiman Marcus for $33.6 million. Liz Claiborne acquired the company in 2007, and Spade left her namesake brand. The luxury fashion company Coach announced plans in May 2017 to buy Kate Spade for $2.4 billion
Kate Spade New York issued a statement confirming the "incredibly sad news" of their eponymous founder's death.
"Although Kate has not been affiliated with the brand for more than a decade, she and her husband and creative partner, Andy, were the founders of our beloved brand," the statement said. "Kate will be dearly missed. Our thoughts are with Andy and the entire Spade family at this time."
"We honor all the beauty she brought into this world," the company said in a tweet.
More than a purse
Spade was found hanged by a scarf she allegedly tied to a doorknob, an NYPD source said.
Her death prompted an outpouring of grief among fans and her company's customers , including Chelsea Clinton and Ivanka Trump.
My grandmother gave me my first Kate Spade bag when I was in college. I still have it. Holding Kate's family, friends and loved ones in my heart. — Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) June 5, 2018
Kate Spade's tragic passing is a painful reminder that we never truly know another's pain or the burden they carry. If you are struggling with depression and contemplating suicide, please, please seek help. https://t.co/eruSexNoGj — Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) June 5, 2018
"Everyone remembers their first Kate Spade," CNN White House reporter and former fashion editor Kate Bennett said. "(The brand) became one of those accessible but quirky fun, timeless labels that everyone had to have, and her rise was synonymous with her name."
For many women, a Kate Spade handbag functioned as a symbol of professional achievement.
A year into being an attorney, my first splurge on myself was my (still) perfect #KateSpade black purse. Functional, crisp, professional, gorgeous. It takes a beautiful mind to design beautiful things. #RIP pic.twitter.com/NieF3sS7uI — ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕪𝕒 (@ChayaBaliga) June 5, 2018
I was 22 when I moved to NYC and got my first real job and it even paid overtime. My first check that had OT hours in it, I set aside that money and bought myself a @katespadeny bag. It was 1998 and I felt so proud and successful. #RIPKateSpade ♥️ — alyssa mastromonaco (@AlyssaMastro44) June 5, 2018
The Council of Fashion Designers of America, which held a star-studded awards ceremony Monday night, posted a statement from Diane von Furstenberg and Steven Kolb saying they were devastated to hear of Spade's death.
"She was a great talent who had an immeasurable impact on American fashion and the way the world viewed American accessories," the statement said.
Cindi Leive, a former editor-in-chief of Glamour magazine, said that part of Spade's legacy is that she put her entire personality into her work.
"She understood that women are going to respond to things that feel like they're made by a human, that they are expressing someone's personality," Leive said.
"If you put a pulse into it and every fiber of your being, people are going to respond. Now, that's kind of a given. Everybody wants to create their own personal lifestyle brand," she added. "But that was new at the time, and in a lot of ways, the contemporary version of it really came from her."
JUST WATCHED 2002: Kate Spade on her fashion inspiration Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 2002: Kate Spade on her fashion inspiration 01:15
Before making the jump to designing, she was a senior fashion editor at the fashion magazine Mademoiselle.
Conversation at restaurant inspired Spade
Last year, Spade and her husband spoke with NPR's "How I Built This" about how they developed the company into a major lifestyle brand.
"So, Andy and I were out, honestly, at a Mexican restaurant," Kate Spade said, "and he just said, what about handbags? And I said, honey, you just don't start a handbag company. And he said, why not? How hard can it be? (Laughter) I thought, OK, really? He regrets those words."
Asking for help The suicide rate in the United States has seen sharp increases in recent years. It's now the 10th leading cause of death in the country, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Studies have shown that the risk of suicide declines sharply when people call the national suicide hotline: 1-800-273-TALK There is also a crisis text line. The lines are staffed by a mix of paid professionals and unpaid volunteers trained in crisis and suicide intervention. The confidential environment, the 24-hour accessibility, a caller's ability to hang up at any time and the person-centered care have helped its success, advocates say.
Joe Zee, a fashion journalist who had worked with Spade, recalled her telling him of the vision to start the handbag line.
"This wasn't something women did or just anyone really did back then in the early '90s," he told CNN. "And to quit a coveted magazine editor's job to really be able to do that ... it was so visionary and so ahead of its time."
"She always had such a great ray of light about her. She was so jovial," Zee said.
American fashion designer Kate Spade has died at the age of 55. Police say she was found dead in her Manhattan home of an apparent suicide.
There are few fashion designers that pierce the collective consciousness, jumping from relative obscurity of “fashion favourite” to obtain the mantle “household name”, but Kate Spade is one of them.
The American designer, who was found dead aged 55 in New York on Tuesday, was the creative force behind one of the biggest American fashion success stories of her generation.
Kate Spade: fashion designer found dead in New York Read more
Yet the hundreds of glossy stores that bear her name on the most exclusive streets around the world belie the humble beginnings of the brand, which started with a prototype made from paper and sticky tape in 1991.
The designer, who then went by her maiden name Kate Brosnahan, had enjoyed a successful career as a fashion editor at the prestigious magazine title Mademoiselle until she realised that her heart belonged to handbags. With the help of her future husband Andy Spade, she created an initial collection of black nylon bags in their Manhattan home. The duo’s concept was to create handbags that were fuss-free – the antithesis of the fashion excess that had been seen in the 80s – and which spoke to the emerging minimalist mindset of the 90s.
Instincts paid off, and after being spotted at several city trade shows, it wasn’t long before Spade’s former fashion editor colleagues were writing about her designs – not to mention toting them around New York. American Vogue editor Anna Wintour and other influential style icons were fans. “The purses became something of a handshake,” said Wall Street Journal fashion reporter Christina Binkley in 2016. “When two women met and saw they were both holding Kate Spade bags, they’d nod at each other and understand they were on the same page.”
The next seven years were packed with the kind of commercial success and critical acclaim that fashion designers only dream of. Between 1993 and 1995, sales jumped from $100,000 to $1.5m, and by 1998 reached $27m. It seemed virtually impossible to walk down a street in an American city without seeing that distinctive label swing past you (an external detail Brosnahan, who had become Spade when she married in 1994, had insisted upon).
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kate Spade posing with her shoes and handbags in 2004. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP
Despite having joined “the status signature company of Gucci’s double-Gs, Chanel’s double-Cs and Louis Vuitton’s LVs” (as the San Francisco Examiner wrote in 2000), Spade’s success was underpinned by the sense of aspiration and coolness inspired by her down-to-earth personality and reputation as a self starter. She told the Boston Globe in 1999 that it was all about finding the balance between being functional and looking good: “Handbags should be both. That’s what designers were forgetting. So many bags can hold a kitchen sink but they’re just big black bags.”
In 1996, the Council of Fashion Designers of America named her as the new fashion talent in accessories at its prestigious annual awards. In 1998, she was honoured at the event, picking up the best accessory designer of the year award. They are accolades that hold a particular poignancy, given that the 2018 ceremony took place this week in New York.
After Spade sold control of her eponymous label to the Neiman Marcus Group in 2006, the designer took time away from running her own business to raise her daughter. She returned in 2016 with Frances Valentine, a new fashion and lifestyle brand that took its name from members of her family. Spade then legally added the names to her own, becoming Katherine Noel Frances Valentine Brosnahan Spade. While we will never know the potential her last eponymous project could have had under her creative reign, her first is the stuff of fashion legend, not just in America, but all around the world.
