Kate Spade was a fashion icon. The news of her suicide today, shocked the world. She leaves behind her husband, Andy, and a 13-year-old daughter. The Spades sold their brand for under $100 million in 1999. Coach recently purchased the brand for $2.4 billion.
Here are the details…
Fashion designer Kate Spade — who created the must-have handbag of the 1990s and turned it into an accessories empire — committed suicide inside her Manhattan apartment, according to police sources.
Spade, 55, hanged herself with a red scarf on a doorknob inside her Upper East Side home and was found by a housekeeper around 11 a.m. Tuesday, sources said.
The married mother of one left behind a note, and appeared to be having relationship problems, according to sources.
“It was over family problems … in her relationship,” a police source told The New York Post.
Spade, born Katherine Noel Brosnahan, leaves behind husband Andrew Spade — the brother of comic actor David Spade — and their 13-year-old daughter, Frances Beatrix Spade. She was the aunt of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” star Rachel Brosnahan.
A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Spade moved to New York in the 1980s to work as an editor at Mademoiselle magazine and began her Kate Spade brand with a small collection eye-catching colorful nylon handbags in 1993.
The fashion designer left behind a note telling her daughter that she should not blame herself for her suicide, according to police sources.
The missive, discovered after the handbag maven’s body was found in her Manhattan apartment Tuesday, told 13-year-old Frances Beatrix Spade the death was not her fault, sources said.
Meanwhile, the AP reported that Spade’s husband, Andy Spade, was home when the suicide was discovered. –NYP
The Spades sold the majority of their empire to Neiman Marcus in 1999 for a reported $34 million, and then the rest in 2006 for another $59 million.
But the brand continued to boom without them and last year, Coach bought the company for $2.4 billion.
Spade and her husband launched a new label called Frances Valentine in 2016.
On Tuesday, the company Kate Spade released a statement on the “incredibly sad” news.
“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. Kate will be dearly missed. Our thoughts are with Andy and the entire Spade family at this time,” the company said.
