New York (CNN) Kate Brosnahan Spade, who created an iconic, accessible handbag line that bridged Main Street and high-end fashion, hanged herself in an apparent suicide Tuesday at her Manhattan apartment, according to New York Police Department sources.
Police responded at 10:10 a.m. after Spade was found by her housekeeper, NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said. A suicide note was found at the scene, he said. Spade addressed her daughter in the note, according to two NYPD sources. Spade's husband also is referenced in the note, according to one of the sources. The designer, 55, started Kate Spade New York in 1993 and opened her first shop in the city three years later, the company's website states.
Fashion designer Kate Spade being interviewed in her New York showroom.
"Debuting with just six silhouettes, she combined sleek, utilitarian shapes and colorful palettes in an entirely new way," the site says.
Best known for its colorful handbags, Kate Spade New York has more than 140 retail shops and outlet stores across the United States and more than 175 stores internationally, the site states.
Over time, she distanced herself from her business.
In 1999, she and her husband, Andy Spade, sold 56% of the brand to Neiman Marcus for $33.6 million. Liz Claiborne acquired the company in 2007, and Spade left her namesake brand. The luxury fashion company Coach announced plans in May 2017 to buy Kate Spade for $2.4 billion.
Kate Spade New York issued a statement confirming the "incredibly sad news" of their eponymous founder's death.
"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," the statement said. "Kate will be dearly missed. Our thoughts are with Andy and the entire Spade family at this time."
"We honor all the beauty she brought into this world," the company said in a tweet.
More at https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/05/us/kate-spade-dead/index.html
Kate Spade killed herself 'after her husband demanded a divorce and moved out' as her sister says she suffered from manic depression for years and was obsessed with Robin Williams' suicide
Kate Spade fell into a deep depression days before she committed suicide because her husband Andy wanted a divorce.
TMZ reports that the couple were living separate lives, and that Andy had moved into a separate apartment after 24 years of marriage.
He was in the apartment however when Kate , 55, hanged herself with a scarf in her Park Avenue home in Manhattan on Tuesday morning.
Andy was seen with the couple's only child on Tuesday at the girl's school, with a source telling DailyMail.com that he arrived with a police officer to get his daughter and tell her the news.
Kate's sister said that the designer had been battling mental illness throughout her life, but it wasn't until comedian Robin Williams killed himself in August 2014 that she began to realize Kate's obsession with suicide and her unraveling mental health.
Kate's suicide was 'not unexpected' according to her family who say she struggled for years with bipolar disorder - but was too scared to seek help in case it hurt her brand.
Her older sister Reta Saffo said Kate struggled to cope with her celebrity status, which only made her suspected bipolar disorder worse.
'My little sister Katy was a precious, precious little person,' Saffo told DailyMail.com. 'Genuine in almost every way.
'Just dear - but she was surrounded by YES people, for far too long, therefore she did not receive the proper care for what I believed to be (and tried numerous times to get her help for) bipolar disorder... stemming from her immense celebrity.'
Saffo said the 55-year-old never anticipated how successful her brand would become - and how she, with it, would become a household name: 'She never expected it - nor was she properly prepared for it.'
More at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5808813/Kate-Spade-dead-Park-Avenue-apartment-apparent-suicide.html