The fashion world is mourning today in the wake of designer Kate Spade’s death at the age of 55. But it’s her impact far beyond that insular community that many are thinking about upon hearing the news.
Truly, ask any woman over the age of 25 today about getting her first Kate Spade bag and she’ll probably have a memorable story to tell you—and there’s a good chance it’ll involve a black nylon boxy bag. It was a magnificently simple cultural marker; a quiet status symbol—and an entry point into the word of designer fashion for myself and so many others.
To me, that bag was a sign that I’d made it. I was a young magazine assistant at Jane in late ’90s, basking in the glow of New York City and being part of a world that I had grown up dreaming about from my bedroom in Indiana. I may have had the cool job, but that didn’t mean I always felt cool. Oh, but that chic black nylon bag with the small—but instantly recognizable—black and white label made me feel like I belonged. I’m 42 now and I can still vividly remember the feeling like it was yesterday.
It’s like that bag had superpowers and every time I carried it, there was a bit more swagger in my walk. I was a New Yorker now—and I could take on anything in my path. The best fashion can transform you and bring out your best self. Spade’s designs could do just that, but—with most early styles clocking in at under $200—also never felt too exclusive or out of reach.
Here, real women (including some Glamour staffers) share their beloved Kate Spade memories.
PHOTO: Ken Hively/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
The famous and highly coveted nylon box bag, in one if its iterations.
Domi Le, Physician, 37
“Kate Spade was a cultural icon whose designs have marked major milestones as a woman for me. My first Kate Spade New York bag was also my first fancy designer purse and I remember being excited about my ability to own one and feeling like a grown-up. After college, I’d saved up money from teaching piano and got a simple black nylon tote to carry with me during my medical school interviews. It still sits in the back of my closet as a reminder of how far I’ve come. Now as a mother, a KSNY diaper bag swings from my shoulder. Her pieces represent an understated, timeless elegance to which I continue to aspire.”
Michelle Ruiz, Writer & Editor, 36
“I’ve never been much for designer bags (shoes over bags, I say), but in the fall of 2000, in my first year at the extremely preppy University of Virginia, I needed a Kate Spade bag like air. For my birthday, in between semesters, my mom took me to Nordstrom at Roosevelt Field mall on Long Island, I chose the little black nylon box tote with the trademark little label, and it was pure joy. It made me feel, even fleetingly, that I, Long Islander, belonged in this strange, Southern place. And, of course, it went with everything. I was pretty devastated when I drunkenly lost it at a date party the next year—but I guess I get why someone stole it. We all wanted a Kate.”
Johanna Dickson, Book Publicist, 34
“I went to a wealthy private school in New Jersey and pretty much every girl in my class had a Kate Spade bag. Either the small box bag or the messenger bag. I begged my mom for months to buy me one even though it was technically out of our price range. I’m not sure what changed, but right before Junior Prom, she offered to buy me the box bag. I literally planned my prom outfit around it. I still have it to this day and I don’t think I can ever part with it.”
Azadeh Valanejad, Glamour Social Video Producer, 28
“Growing up, Kate Spade was always the epitome of being a modern day Holly Golightly/Audrey Hepburn to me, I’ll never forget when I was in middle school and we came to New York for the holidays and I got my first Kate Spade bag. And then a striped tote in high school. And when I started to work, I would always save up to buy her accessories. Even today, my desk at home is filled with Kate Spade office accessories and my apartment has touches of Kate Spade home scattered throughout.”
Jenny Meyer, Publicist, 38
“I saved up my allowance to buy my first Kate Spade bag—the gold mini backpack—and thought it pretty much made me the coolest girl in school. It was the very first fashion purchase I made myself and I wouldn’t even let that bag touch the floor. Thank you, Kate Spade. You brought beauty and color to so many of us.”
PHOTO: Boston Globe
Spade at her Boston store in 1999
Jamie Stelter, News Anchor, 36
“I got the black box bag first, but the more memorable one for me was the silver messenger bag I got for my high school graduation. I carried it every day in college and still have it today. I think I need to break it back out now.”
Laurel Pinson, Glamour Digital Director, 38
“I’ll never forget the feeling of getting my first Kate Spade bag in middle school—the Sam bag, a boxy, black nylon satchel with “Kate Spade” prominently displayed on the outside. It was a proxy for everything I aspired to be—modern, pulled-together, and above all, fashionable. “Kate Spade” meant style. I lived in New York, where knock-offs littered Canal Street—the ultimate sign of an “It” bag, really—and I relished the idea that I owned an authentic original.”
Sasha Charnin Morrison, Style Director, 53
“Kate Spade did change my life in the 1990’s. I went from a long-in-the-tooth Hello Kitty lunchbox to her nylon logo bag. And that made me feel sophisticated. She had a fabulous eye as an accessories editor and gave us something relevant to carry that was accessible, chic, elegant and made me feel like I had arrived.”
Jaime Maser Berman, Publicist, 39
“I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia) and went to a fairly large high school (my graduating class was 1000 kids) so had considered myself in the know and up on the latest trends… until I arrived at Boston University in Fall 1996. There was so much diversity and wealth there, I realized very soon I was a small fish in a very big pond and had a lot to learn and absorb in the style department. When I was rushing sororities in spring of 1997, the name Kate Spade was so ubiquitous, I naively thought she was a popular girl at rush everyone was talking about.
Kate Spade bags were a status symbol in those days. I wanted one desperately, but my waitressing money was paying for rent (and my weekend nights out), and I couldn’t imagine splurging on a designer bag. But the desire didn’t wane.
Fast forward to my graduation in 2000, when my boyfriend at the time said his family wanted to get me something big for graduation to have for my first job. Without hesitation, I named the Kate Spade shoulder tote. It was a sky blue meets gunmetal color in nylon. Rectangular box shaped with black fabric handles and a zipper closure and the small black label with the Kate Spade logo in white print discretely placed on the front. I dreamed about that bag daily and was ecstatic when I received it as my graduation gift. I remember feeling like a true grown-up when I carried it; it bestowed a confidence on me that I needed as a new graduate making the interview rounds at the various PR agencies in Boston, seeking my first post-college publicity job.
I eventually retired the bag, and other favorite bags took its place, but the Kate Spade tote brings back fond memories and holds a special place my heart.”
A vintage secondhand Kate Spade nylon bag currently on Etsy
Andrea Halpern, Real Estate Agent, 41
“I vividly remember getting a Kate Spade wallet my senior year of college. My friend, Randi, got it for me because she worked at Bergdorf Goodman and it was brand new there. My friends and I also used the famous big tote that year too. It was the cool bag.”
Jessica Blankenship, Writer, 31
“I stole a kate spade purse from a department store when I was 15 and wore it every day for years. I was a poor kid at a rich school. That bag was like armor and camouflage and a hall pass that diminished the pain of being on the wrong side of my high school’s economic divide. If you get that the transformative power of fashion makes it arguably the mightiest and most relevant art form, then you get why Kate Spade mattered to the highest degree, aside from being a brilliant artist. She gave a generation of young women the ability to feel composed and put-together while they were growing up during times that made them feel scattered and scared. Affording her brand didn’t matter — she defined an aesthetic that echoed throughout fashion at all price points. Even if Kate Spade’s aesthetic wasn’t your style, it was always an option and that had unspeakable power. Her designs created a language of broad acceptability. It was a uniform anyone could choose to put on and instantly feel polished and palatable in the halls of privilege.”
Lindsay Schallon, Glamour Senior Beauty Editor, 29
“Few designers are revered in the Midwest, where I grew up, like Kate Spade. I remember begging my parents for one of her poppy, bright, quirky designs only to have them laugh at price. I finally got my chance to own one—a $300 fit-and-flare dress (with pockets!)—years later when I moved to New York City and was interviewing for my first magazine job at Seventeen. It was the first designer piece I bought for myself, and the pride I felt in wearing it was overwhelming. It hasn’t fit for three years, but it’s still in my closet. It’s too sentimental to part with.”
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