NEW YORK _ Iconic designer Kate Spade was found dead Tuesday in a suspected suicide inside her New York home, police said.
A housekeeper found the body of the 55-year-old fashion designer in her apartment on the Upper East Side at about 10:20 a.m., police sources said. Spade hanged herself with a scarf, police sources said.
A note was found inside the home, suggesting Spade committed suicide, sources said.
Kate Spade New York has more than 140 retail shops around the U.S., and more than 175 elsewhere in the world.
Born Katherine Brosnahan in Kansas City, Mo., in December 1962, Spade attended an all-girls Catholic high school. She graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in journalism in 1985.
Eight years later, after a stint as a fashion editor at Mademoiselle magazine, she launched Kate Spade. Her partner on the new line of handbags was her soon-to-be husband, Andy Spade, the brother of comedian David Spade.
The company, in those early days, showed little signs of the global success story it would become.
"We were still not making any money," Spade recalled of the early years during an interview for NPR's "How I Built This" podcast in February 2016.
"Nobody was making a salary," she added. "I just remember thinking, 'I think we need to shut it down.'"
But her handbags, with their modern look and bright pops of color, soon attracted legions of loyal buyers. Kate Spade handbags lined the shelves at Barneys and other high-fashion retailers.
Spade parlayed her fame into three successful books, "Manners," "Occasions" and "Style."
She sold the company in 2007 to focus on the couple's daughter, Frances, who was born in February 2005.
But she returned to the fashion world in 2016 when she launched the Frances Valentine line in U.S. stores.
