Kate Brosnahan Spade, who created an iconic, accessible handbag line that bridged Main Street and high-end fashion,
was found hanged by a scarf she allegedly tied to a doorknob, at her Manhattan apartment, according to New York Police Department sources.
Spade who was 55 years old, left behind a note that addressed her 13-year-old daughter, Frances Beatrix Spade — and suggested her husband, Andrew Spade, would know why she took her own life,
“This has nothing to do with you,” the note to Frances reads in part, according to sources. “Don’t feel guilty. Ask your dad.”
Police believe the suicide was “over family problems . . . in her relationship,” a police source told The Post.
Her death prompted an outpouring of grief among fans and her company’s customers, including Chelsea Clinton and Ivanka Trump.
Spade’s apparent suicide comes as suicide rates in the United States increased from 1999 to 2014 for everyone between the ages of 10 and 74, according to a 2016 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For white women, the suicide rate increased by 60% during that period, the study found.
Kate Spade, was found by a housekeeper at 10:10 a.m. and pronounced dead a short time later, according to police.
“She was a beautiful person in every way imaginable and it is a devastating loss,” her sister Eve Brosnahan told The Post by phone from her home in California. “She was an angel.”
“We are all devastated by today’s tragedy. We loved Kate dearly and will miss her terribly. We would ask that our privacy be respected as we grieve during this very difficult time,” the Spade family said in a statement.
Andrew was at the couple’s home at 850 Park Ave., on the corner of East 77th Street, when the suicide was discovered, but Frances was at school.
No criminality is suspected, NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said at an unrelated press conference.
“At this point, there was a note left. The contents of that note, as well as the physical state of the apartment and the comments of the witness, lend to the credibility that it is an apparent suicide,” he said.
A Kansas City, Mo., native, Spade moved to New York in the 1980s to work as an editor at Mademoiselle magazine, and began her titular brand, Kate Spade, with a small collection of eye-catching colorful nylon handbags in 1993.
The company was a runaway success, with its products quickly making their way into high-end boutiques and onto the arms of celebrities, and had racked up $28 million in sales by the end of 1998, according to a New York Times report at the time.
The Spades sold the majority of their empire to Neiman Marcus in 1999 for a reported $34 million, and then the rest in 2006 for another $59 million.
But the brand continued to boom without them, and Coach bought the company for $2.4 billion last year.
In 2016, Spade and her husband launched a new label called Frances Valentine, which she named in part for her daughter, according to a 2015 Women’s Wear Daily interview.
