[3] After graduating from St. Teresa's Academy, an all-female Catholic high school, Spade attended the University of Kansas.

[7] While working for Mademoiselle, she had noticed that the market lacked stylish, affordable, and sensible handbags, so decided to create her own.

Spade made six prototypes with Scotch tape and paper, and found a manufacturer in East New York willing to work with a startup to produce the bags.

To finance the company, Andy, who had worked as a copywriter, withdrew his 401(k) pension plan and sometimes paid employees with personal checks.

The couple spent their shipping season living at friends' apartments, since their own was filled with boxed handbags.

One woman recalled that the Kate Spade bags looked "mature, without being too adult for a teenager," unlike higher-priced brands such as Burberry or Louis Vuitton.

[7] The company exclusively sold handbags at first, but soon expanded to clothing, jewelry, shoes, stationery, eyewear, baby items, fragrances, and gifts.

In 1996, the Kate Spade brand opened its first boutique, a 400-square-foot (37 m2) shop in Manhattan's trendy SoHo district, and moved its headquarters into a 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) space on West 25th Street.

Kate Spade Saturday carried more casual handbags and apparel, but had heavy promotions and eventually closed in 2015.

[12] In 1999, Spade sold a 56% stake in her business to Neiman Marcus Group, helping to expand the brand worldwide.

[27] The day after his wife's death, Andy Spade released a statement: Kate suffered from depression and anxiety for many years.

She was actively seeking help and working closely with doctors to treat her disease, one that takes far too many lives.

On several occasions, Reta had tried to convince her sister to get treatment, but Spade feared the stigma of mental illness would hurt her brand.

Saffo suspected her sister had been contemplating suicide since actor Robin Williams hanged himself in 2014, media coverage of which, she claimed, captivated Spade.

Elyce Arons, one of her business partners, also recalled to The New York Times that she had on several occasions heard Spade say that she "would never do that" when news broke of a celebrity's suicide.

[33] In 2017, she was inducted into the Entrepreneur Hall of Fame at the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.