Fashion designer Kate Spade found dead in New York apartment
Fashion designer Kate Spade was found dead in her Manhattan apartment Tuesday morning, according to reports.
Law enforcement officials say Spade died of an apparent suicide.
Spade was found by housekeeping staff inside her Park Avenue apartment at about 10:20 a.m. The officials said she was found with a red scarf around her neck attached to a doorknob.
The couple's 13-year-old daughter was at school at the time, and officials said a note was found at the scene telling her it was not her fault. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
According to the , Spade's husband was on scene.
The 55-year-old Spade created a line of sleek handbags in the early 1990s that created a smash.
“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,” the Kansas City, Mo., native told The Associated Press in 2004. “For our customers, fashion is in the right place in their life. It’s an adornment, not an obsession.”
Her company, Kate Spade New York, has over 140 retail shops and outlet stores across the U.S. and more than 175 shops internationally.
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.
In 2017, Coach bought the brand for $2.4 billion.
CNN Money reported that the deal was "looking like a flop" after same-store sales for Kate Spade plunged 9 percent in the first quarter because of a huge drop in online revenue.
Spade and her husband Andy started a new handbag company a few years ago, Frances Valentine. And she changed her name to Katherine Noel Frances Valentine Brosnahan Spade, she said in an NPR interview this year.
A spokeswoman for Kate Spade New York told The New York Times: “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 Associated Press contributed to this report