The fashion designer Kate Spade has been found dead in her New York apartment following an apparent suicide, law enforcement officials have said.
The businesswoman was best known for the eponymous handbag brand she founded with her husband, Andy Spade, in 1993.
Born Katherine Noel Brosnahan, Ms Spade gained a degree in journalism from Arizona State University in 1985 before moving to New York to join Mademoiselle magazine as a fashion editor the following year.
She launched her career as a handbag designer with her husband in the early 1990s following her departure from the magazine, and opened her first store in 1996.
The brand has since become a household name with stores around the world and an expanded product line including clothing, footwear and stationery.
Her work won acclaim early on, with Spade winning the award for America's New Fashion Talent in Accessories from the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1996.
Ms Spade completed the sale of her share of the business in 2006 for $124m, and left in 2007, taking time off for charity work and to look after her daughter, Frances Beatrix, born in 2005.
More recently, she was inducted into the Entrepreneur Hall of Fame at the Henry W Bloch School of Management in the US, and business magazine Fast Company named her one of its Most Creative People in Business last year.
In 2016, the designer and her husband teamed up again to launch handbag and footwear brand Frances Valentine.
She also changed her last name to Valentine to distinguish her from her original brand, she told publication Business Of Fashion that year.
She is survived by her husband Andy and daughter Frances.
