The Kate Spade luxury brand, part of Tapestry Inc., has offered its condolences in the wake of its founding designer's apparent suicide.
Kate Spade, 55, was found dead at her Park Avenue apartment June 5 in New York City, The Associated Press reported. She was no longer involved with the brand bearing her name.
"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 [Spade] and the entire Spade family at this time," Kate Spade New York said in an emailed statement to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Kate Spade and her husband, Andy Spade, launched the Kate Spade brand in 1993, according to the AP report. The two eventually sold the business to luxury retailer The Neiman Marcus Group LLC, and the company then-known as Liz Claiborne took control of it in 2006, according to the report. Kate Spade stepped away from the company in 2007.
In 2017, U.S. luxury goods company Tapestry, then known as Coach Inc., took over Kate Spade & Co. in a $2.4 billion deal.
