Big Plans? Gumption? They’ve Got It in Spades
Setting out to create a classic might be an exercise in hubris, but Kate and Andy Spade didn’t think so when they quit their jobs five years ago to sell their own line of handbags. He had been an advertising copywriter in New York. She was an accessories editor at Mademoiselle. They both knew something about fashion marketing and itched to be entrepreneurs.
Andy Spade was 30 then, Kate 29, and their gamble to “control our own destiny” seems to have paid off. Their second Kate Spade store opened this month, on Robertson Boulevard in Beverly Hills.
“I thought there was a void in the market, between the very serious designer bags and the cheap and trendy ones,” she said.
Their idea was to create a classic shape and repeat it every season, making small changes. The box-like handbags were initially made of nylon or other fabrics, with leather handles and trim. Leather versions were introduced six months ago.
“We aspired to be like the Belgian loafer, a classic design that has been around a long time that women keep going back to, that always looks right,” Andy Spade said. “Our idea was to create something that would have lasting value. But it’s hard to have instant history.”
Kate Spade, who is responsible for the designing, remembers acceptance was not immediate.
“Some buyers would look at the line and say, ‘Hmmm. A wool herringbone bag?’ ”
Herringbone bags sit on open shelves in the bright new store, along with totes of awning striped canvas and evening bags that fasten with a small silver jewel she calls a fireball.
“We wanted to open our own stores so the customer could see us as we see ourselves,” she said. (Their first boutique debuted in SoHo in October.) “We can stock things other than the bags, like an authentic French sailor polo from Normandy, or a mackintosh rubberized rain slicker that’s made for us in special colors. We’re carrying authentic items that we like.”
Kate Spade bags are available at Barneys, Neiman Marcus, Fred Segal, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s. But the department stores often don’t carry the more unusual items, such as what the Spades call “inner city beach bags.” These are straw bags decorated with the names of such landlocked neighborhoods as Silver Lake or Echo Park. They have the spirit of souvenirs brought back from funky beach towns near the Great Barrier Reef.
Andy Spade is a stockier, more earthbound version of his brother David, whose career as a comedian and actor has taken off at the same time that Kate Spade bags developed into a status symbol for Generation X. Kate is a soft-spoken, slender woman who doesn’t seem to be burdened with an outsize ego. So why is her name on a little cloth label sewn on the outside of most of the bags?
“It was a fluke,” she said. “I was staring at the bag I’d designed, and I felt there was something missing. There needed to be a graphic element for the eye to focus on.”
Do It Yourself: Midway through that decade of wretched excess we now fondly remember as the ‘80s, it seemed as though the most common goal was to not have to do anything for yourself. If you made enough money, you could hire someone to walk your dog, water your plants, organize your closets and, of course, soothe your aching psyche.
That spirit seems alive in the new trend toward eyebrow tending. Women everywhere who were once content to hold a tweezers in one hand and a magnifying mirror in the other are now consulting professionals who claim special knowledge about the shaping, waxing and plucking of eyebrows. Now, understand that these words are being written by a woman who thinks pampering is a right, not a privilege, and who couldn’t competently paint her own finger and toenails if a gun were pressed to her temple. But must appointments with an eyebrow expert be added to the schedule of the well-groomed?
I think not. I harbor no malice toward those dedicated professionals who earn their living plucking other people’s wayward eyebrow hairs. But when the Sudanese-born model Alek Wek can land magazine covers almost as easily as Kate Moss, wonderfully diverse visions of feminine beauty are finally being celebrated.
I’m afraid the art of the manicured brow is still in its infancy and is yielding a standardized style as scary as those itty bitty nose jobs that were a plague on women’s faces 30 years ago.
Thank goodness for such bushy browed beauties as Brooke Shields, who uphold the standard for seriously present brows. When it’s obvious that Monica Lewinsky has paid a visit to the brow lady, the sameness of what was once a delightfully individual feature threatens us all.
