Katherine Noel Brosnahan (December 24, 1962 - June 5, 2018), known professionally as Kate Spade and Kate Valentine, was an American fashion designer and businesswoman. She was the founder and former co-owner of the designer brand Kate Spade New York.
After working in the accessories department at the fashion magazine Mademoiselle, Brosnahan and her husband Andy Spade founded the business in 1993, identifying a market for quality stylish handbags. The handbags that she designed and produced quickly became popular due to their sophistication and affordability; they have been described as a symbol of 1990s New York City.
The company expanded into other product lines. In 1999, she sold a 56 percent stake in Kate Spade New York to Neiman Marcus Group; in 2006 she sold the rest of her shares. In 2016, she and partners launched a new fashion brand called Frances Valentine.
Video Kate Spade
Early life
Spade was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the daughter of June (Mullen) and Earl Francis Brosnahan, who owned a road construction company. Her ancestry was mostly Irish. After graduating from St. Teresa's Academy, an all-girl Catholic high school, she attended the University of Kansas. Later she transferred to Arizona State University, where she joined Kappa Kappa Gamma, and graduated with a journalism degree in 1985.
Fashion was a love, she recalled later, but not an obsession. Her original goal was to become a television producer, and she cited the example of Holly Hunter's character in the 1987 film Broadcast News as her inspiration.
Maps Kate Spade
Career
Mademoiselle
In 1986, Spade worked in the accessories department at Mademoiselle magainze in Manhattan, where she was credited by her maiden name, Katy Brosnahan. While at Mademoiselle, she started living with Andy Spade, a native of Scottsdale, Arizona. The two had worked side-by-side as salespeople in a men's clothing store, Carter's Men Shop, back when Spade was still in Phoenix.
She left Mademoiselle in 1991, with the title of Senior Fashion Editor/Head of Accessories. While working for Mademoiselle, she had noticed that the market lacked stylish and sensible handbags, and decided to create her own.
Kate Spade New York
Kate and Andy Spade launched the New York-based design company "kate spade handbags" in January 1993. "I wanted a functional bag that was sophisticated and had some style," Spade would later recall. She made six prototypes with Scotch Tape and paper, and found a manufacturer in East New York willing to work with a startup to turn them into actual bags. To finance the company, Andy, who had worked as a copywriter, withdrew his 401(k) pension plan, and sometimes paid employees with personal checks. The couple spent their shipping season living at friends' apartments, since their own was filled with boxed handbags.
Kate was undecided as to what name to give the company, because she and Spade had not yet married, and "Kate Brosnahan" did not sound like an ideal name for a fashion label. She considered a number of names, but agreed when Andy suggested "Kate Spade" -- a combination of their names that he found euphonious. After an early show at the Javits Center at which the department-store chain Barneys ordered a few bags, Kate decided to put the bag's labels on the outside, a change that took her all night to make, but established the brand.
The bags, priced in the $150 to $450 range, quickly became popular, particularly in New York. Teenage girls with disposable income appreciated that the bags at the lower end of the price range were affordable. That was "a real shift" in fashion, said Fern Mallis, director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) during the 1990s. "Everybody had Kate Spade bags. You could afford them, and happily buy more than one."
Young American women at the time also liked the sophisticated look. One woman recalled to Sarah Maslin Nir in The New York Times later that the Kate Spade bags looked mature, without being too adult for a teenager as a Burberry bag would have been seen. "At the turn of the last century," Nir wrote, "her bag came to encapsulate a decidedly Manhattan moment in time," a moment when Vogue editor Anna Wintour recalled that it was impossible to walk a block in the city without seeing one.
The company sold mainly handbags at first, but soon extended to clothing, jewelry, shoes, stationery, eyewear, baby items, fragrances, tabletop, bedding and gifts. In 1996, the Kate Spade brand opened its first boutique, a 400-square-foot (37 m2) shop located in Manhattan's trendy SoHo district, and moved its headquarters into a 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) space in West 25th Street.
In 2004, "Kate Spade at home" was launched as a home collection brand. It featured bedding, bath items, china, wallpaper and various items for the home. Later in 2004, Spade also published three books on the subjects of etiquette, entertainment, and fashion--Manners, Occasions, and Style. That same year, a Kate Spade store was opened in Aoyama, Tokyo in Japan.
Neiman Marcus Group purchased 56 percent of the Kate Spade brand in 1999, and the remaining 44 percent in 2006. The Group sold the label in 2006 to Liz Claiborne Inc., for $124 million; it was later renamed Fifth & Pacific. The company was purchased by Coach, Inc. in May 2017; both Coach and Kate Spade are now part of Tapestry, Inc.
Frances Valentine
After selling the remaining portion of her ownership stake in the Kate Spade brand in 2006, Spade took time off to raise her daughter. In 2016, she and her business partners launched a new collection of luxury footwear and handbags under the brand name Frances Valentine. The name Frances is a family name on Spade's paternal side; her daughter is named Frances, as were her grandfather, father, and brother. "Valentine" came from Spade's maternal side; it was her grandfather's middle name, given because he was born on Valentine's Day. In 2016, Spade legally changed her surname to Valentine.
Personal life
Spade married Andy Spade, the brother of actor/comedian David Spade, in 1994. The couple had one child, Frances Beatrix Spade, born in 2005. The actress Rachel Brosnahan is Spade's niece.
Death
A housekeeper found Spade dead in her Manhattan apartment on June 5, 2018. Her death was ruled a suicide by hanging. Police reported that she had left a note addressed to her daughter. The day after her death, Andy Spade released a statement regarding his wife's death and the fact that she had suffered from depression and anxiety.
After Spade's death, her sister, Reta Saffo, told the media her suicide was "not unexpected". She believed Kate had suffered from bipolar disorder throughout her life, aggravated by the fame and wealth she achieved in her 30s. On several occasions she had tried to convince her sister to get treatment, but Kate feared the stigma of mental illness would hurt her brand. Saffo suspected her sister had been contemplating suicide since actor Robin Williams hanged himself in 2014, media coverage of which, she claimed, captivated Kate. The last time the two had talked, she said, Kate had asked her to come to her funeral even though she knew Saffo did not like going to those events. She insisted to Saffo that she was not considering suicide.
The rest of the family, who have not been close to Saffo for a decade, disputed this characterization. A source close to them told NBC News that they were "disgusted and saddened" at Saffo's remarks. "Her statement paints a picture of someone who did not know [Kate] at all." Kate's older brother Earl Brosnahan did allow that Kate had been the only one in the family who still spoke to Saffo, but only "sporadically". He nevertheless called Saffo's accounts "grossly inaccurate". Elyce Arons, one of her business partners, also recalled to The New York Times that she had on several occasions heard Spade say that she "would never do that" when news broke of a celebrity's suicide.
Reactions
Flowers were left in piles outside the Kate Spade New York store on Madison Avenue. The store itself posted a sign in the front window noting her death as the founder of the brand. It read "We honor all the beauty she brought into the world".
On Twitter, many women recalled the Kate Spade bags of their younger years. Chelsea Clinton observed that she still had the one her grandmother had given her to take to college. The designer "encouraged women to find the twinkly person inside them", said actress Mindy Kaling. "You couldn't walk into her boutiques and not smile." Ivanka Trump said Spade's death was a "painful reminder that we never truly know another's pain or the burden they carry" and urged her readers to reach out and help anyone else they might know who was similarly suffering.
Tributes also came from within the fashion industry. "Kate Spade had an enviable gift for understanding exactly what women the world over wanted to carry," recalled Anna Wintour. "She knew what the fashion world needed before we did," said Joe Zee, former creative director for Elle.
Wintour particularly gave Spade credit for making American handbags fashionable. Before her, the editor said, "everyone thought that the definition of a handbag was strictly European, all decades-old serious status and wealth. Then along came this thoroughly American young woman who changed everything."
Awards
In 1996, the CFDA awarded Spade "America's New Fashion Talent in Accessories" for her classic designs. In 1998, the organization again honored her for "Best Accessory Designer of the Year".
Her home collection won her three design awards in 2004, including, House Beautiful's "Giants of Design Award for Tastemaker", Bon Appétit's "American Food and Entertaining Award for Designer of the Year", and Elle Decor's "Elle Decor International Design Award for Bedding".
In 2017, she was inducted into the Entrepreneur Hall of Fame at the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Also in 2017, she was named one of the Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company.
See also
- List of Arizona State University alumni
- List of fashion designers
- List of Kappa Kappa Gamma sisters
- List of people from Kansas City, Missouri
- List of people who died by hanging
- List of suicides in the 21st century
References
External links
- Official website
- Frances Valentine
Source of article : Wikipedia
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