described herself as “very shy” in high school.
A journalism major in college, she met Andy
when the two were working their way through
Arizona State University at the same clothing
store. She moved to Manhattan after
graduation and, in 1986, took a $14,000-a-year
job as an assistant at Mademoiselle magazine,
where she collected handbags for photo shoots.
“We sat next to each other,” remembers then-
accessories editor Elizabeth Perine. “There
was something so wholesome and down-to-
earth about Katy B. She seemed too nice to go
on and become so successful.”
By then, Andy had followed Kate to New
York, “rising fast in the advertising world and a
marketing genius,” recalls another of Kate’s
Mademoiselle colleagues. Andy suggested in 1991
that Kate try design. “He just said, what about
handbags? And I said, ‘Honey, you just don’t start
a handbag company.’ And he said, ‘Why not?’”
Kate later told the How I
Built This podcast.
In 1993, a year before
they married, Kate Spade
New York was born.
Running the business out of
their apartment at first, the
couple completed the sale of
their company to Neiman
Marcus in 2006, banking $US92.6 million.
Baby Frances Beatrix—“Bea”—was just a year
old and Kate took 10 years off to focus on being
a mum. “It was so natural for me to get
involved in my daughter’s school, her play
dates and baking,” Kate told WHO in 2016. She
was chair of a parent committee at Bea’s
private all-girls’ school and would throw on a
pair of yellow shoes with rhinestones for the
morning drop-off run in her workout clothes.
“It all sounds a little corny,” Kate said, “but I
enjoyed every minute of it.” Said an
acquaintance from school circles, “Kate was
friendly with many of the mothers. No-one
there had any idea she was struggling.”
Looking back, maybe she did drop clues. In
an interview with WHO in July 2016 on the
launch of Frances Valentine, Kate repeatedly
spoke of her tendency to fret. “I might worry a
little more than others,” Kate said. “And I
definitely don’t want my daughter to feel that
way. My dad always says, ‘Just float. Not every
little pebble is a boulder.’ ” She also chafed a
little at the loss of recognition during her break
from the industry. Stopping in a Kate Spade
store to buy Bea a skirt, the saleswoman asked
if Kate was on their mailing list. “My daughter
was looking at me like, ‘C’mon, just tell her.’
And I was like, ‘No,’” Kate recalled. “But I
loved, ‘Are you on our mailing list?’ I created
your mailing list!”
As for the deterioration of her marriage,
Andy cast it as a temporary break and
emphasised after her suicide that the three of
them still had family dinners and holidayed
together. “We were best friends trying to work
through our problems.”
Kate’s friend, who
requested anonymity,
vouches for the split being
amicable, at least on its face.
“They had issues for a while,
but you never heard them
speaking poorly of one
another. Andy is doing his
best to be there for Bea and
protect her from what is going on.” While Andy
works out with Frank Brosnahan his wish to
have his daughter home in Kansas to be buried
beside her mother (funeral plans were
uncertain at press time), those Kate left behind
searched for meaning in their grief. Her dad told
The Kansas City Star he was gratified by the
attention on mental illness and suicide: “Any
talk that ... helps somebody else, Katy would
have liked that.” And David Spade focused on
Kate’s light. “She could make me laugh so hard,”
he wrote on Instagram. “It’s a rough world out
there, people. Try to hang on.”
■ By Sandra Sobieraj WestfallIf you or someone you know needs help, con-
tact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or http://www.lifeline.org.au“I’m a worry wart
... I look at what’s
not working rather
than what is”
—Kate Spade, in July 2016Kate refused
business
offers that
would take
her away
from Bea
(in 2007).Kate’s bags “helped shape
the aesthetic of the
time—simple but
meaningful and
functional,” says CFDA
president Steven Kolb.Andy with Kate
in 2003 is “more
relaxed, more
of a risk-taker,”
Kate said.David
Spade (left,
circa 2000)
remembered
Kate as “so
sharp and
quick on
her feet.”Who l 27