Kate Spade

She went from using a straw basket for a handbag to building a $3 billion fashion industry behemoth. Daniela Elser reports on the powerful legacy of a true design luminary

Inside the candy-hued store, they would have looked like any other mother and daughter shopping together. She was a middle-aged woman, her style vivid and effervescent, her look most likely accessorised with chic costume jewellery, her hair swept back in a vaguely retro bouffant. They were after a skirt for the girl, a 12-year-old who bore a striking resemblance to her mother, at a Kate Spade New York store, the white space a riot of jewel-bright handbags and clothes. Later, the shop assistant asked the woman, “Are you on our mailing list?”

If the assistant had been paying attention, she might have noticed the girl nudge her mother or smile. The mum in question was far from just a stylish shopper – she was Kate Spade herself, a woman who turned her yearning for a fashionable but practical handbag into a global powerhouse.

“I said no and my daughter was looking at me like, ‘C’mon, just tell her,’” Spade later said of the incident. “I just loved, ‘Are you on our mailing list?’ It’s like, ‘No, I created your mailing list!’”

Spade, in fact, had built a lifestyle behemoth that went from a successful handbag line to a $3 billion fashion giant. Not only were her designs coveted, her business nous and style prescience saw her label irrevocably shape the fashion landscape.