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The Editorial BoardThe Wall Street Journal
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The death this week of designer Kate Spade at age 55 appears to be an all too familiar case of suicide caused by depression. But the tragedy shouldn’t obscure the story of Spade’s remarkable success as a creative entrepreneur and a cultural trend-setter of classic good taste.
Born in Kansas City,
Katherine Noel Brosnahan
took the path so many Midwesterners have and headed for New York City and the main chance. She worked as an editor at Mademoiselle magazine before she and husband Andy came up with an idea to sell handbags she had designed. They shipped her bags out of their apartment at first and dipped into Andy’s savings for the original financing. Their main assets were ambition, determination and Kate Spade’s creative vision. It’s a great American story.
Spade’s designs caught on with women of all ages with their bright colors, clean lines and elegant style. They had a sophisticated look that suggested luxury but were priced so middle-class women could aspire and save to buy them. Her brand has always traded in wit, grace and a functionality that is also feminine.
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Long before the media celebrated millionaire actresses for demanding equal pay, Spade built a hugely successful business that employed hundreds. Long before identity politics insisted on male and female quotas, she made her own success by creating products and a brand that made millions of women feel stylish and empowered.
She and her husband sold their company for tens of millions of dollars in 2006 but even after the sale guarded their brand with their modest lifestyle and good behavior. Spade was a fashion celebrity by dint of her commercial success, but not a loud or ostentatious one. She wasn’t a tabloid regular. Two years ago she and Andy began to create another fashion line, and it’s a loss that its promise was cut short by her illness and death.
Spade’s success is a reminder that the wonder that is the U.S. economy rewards—and needs—creativity of all kinds. A free economy lets women and men tap their talent to provide what people want—even before people know they want it, as Steve Jobs once put it. Spade’s passions were fashion and handbags, but in that commitment she made a contribution as worthy as Steve Jobs did working on circuit boards in his California garage.
Mental illness is a scourge that afflicts millions, but the world’s good fortune is that it didn’t afflict Kate Spade before she could leave such a large legacy.
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