FINDING HER GROOVE
Stripping out the frills and flounce that once defined a New York mainstay was a big risk, but one that Nicola Glass was willing to take at the all-new Kate Spade.
Stripping out the frills and flounce that once defined a New York mainstay was a big risk, but one that Nicola Glass was willing to take at the all-new Kate Spade. By Alice Birrell.
A MURMUR WENT through the Kate Spade studio when Nicola Glass took over as creative director, the kind of muffled whisper that runs through an office about the new person. “I kind of banned bows,” Glass says with a semi-penitent laugh by way of confession from her 8th-floor office at the label’s Park Avenue, New York headquarters. “There was a ripple that went around the company of: ‘She doesn’t like bows!’”
That’s hardly controversial, but when you are talking about a multibillion-dollar brand that introduced exuberant quirk and fashion with a wink to a generation of American women (and then the world), a bow is serious business. Now, almost a year after showing her debut collection at New York Fashion Week – the first-ever Kate Spade runway show – the Irish-born designer has chalked up four seasons without bows. “It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s just that I felt it had become a little bit too: ‘Oh, it’s got to be feminine, we’re going to slap [one] on the back of that coat.’”
For the American label known for affordable luxury, ornamental flourishes like these once demarcated Kate Spade, adorning toes of shoes, perching on necklines and peppering the huge array of product categories from homewares and fragrance to bridal that made it a lifestyle brand. The company was steered by namesake founder Kate Spade from its launch in 1993 until 2007, and then for 10 years by Deborah Lloyd, who leaned heavily on the novel to expand the offering. Glass views her banishing of the motif as drawing a line under the past. “There are other ways to make something feel feminine,” she posits. “I just wanted to loosen things up a bit.”
Glass was appointed creative head in January last year, after parent company Tapestry Inc. bought Kate Spade in 2017. Now, seated behind a desk just hours after presenting her autumn/winter ’19/’20 offering, her second main season for the label, Glass is wearing wide-leg velvet trousers in a shade of deep forest with a matching silk blouse. Her cropped platinum-blonde hair is flicked to one side and her light blue eyes are framed by rims of smoky eyeliner. Her only visible jewellery is a bubblegum-pink stone atop a cocktail ring and subtle gold looped earrings. Conscious or not, she is embodying the brand’s new direction: sleek, but not self-serious.
She has just shown a line-up of 40s-inflected 70s separates, suits and dresses along with her rethink of accessories, the category the brand built itself on when Kate Spade, a former accessories editor at Mademoiselle magazine hailing from Kansas City, launched the now famous Sam bag. It was a boxy mini-tote that soared to popularity owing to its offering in a rainbow of colours and price-accessible fabrics like nylon. Although the company has long produced a clothing range, bags still made up 55 per cent of Kate Spade sales in 2017. Glass is now looking to pump up the ready-to-wear contingent.
“I came in and re-invigorated the handbags, but I think that ready-towear is so important,” she says, noting she’ll keep print and colour, but nix the literal interpretations of things like flowers and butterflies in favour of a subtle abstract floral and a clover-like motif cleverly made up of four spades, which appears on intarsia knit jumpers, vests and skirts. “In a way it’s actually the ready-to-wear that brings you more fashion credibility.”
For autumn/winter ’18/’19 she built on the pastel-heavy but not saccharine debut for spring/summer ’19, evolving the colour palette to include more grown-up syrupy browns, sangria red, rust and boysenberry. Pastels this time were colour-faded until they became barely there shades of wisteria, ballerina and sky on lace-up suede boots. Dresses too came out once again and appear to be a core focus, like the triptych of long-sleeved versions that opened the show with 40s shoulders and nipped waists that could easily transition throughout the day. Some were cleverly work-focussed, with collars and buttons; others were silken midis, wrapped with fluttering bias-cut sleeves that could do day or night.
None were excessively embellished, fitting with the “polished ease” Glass describes as part of her mission of usability. “When you wear the clothes, you should feel quite put together, but they’re still very easy to wear, and they’re comfortable,” she says.
And while she is happy to leave certain things in the past, others she was forced not to. She was only months into the job when the fashion world was rocked by the sudden passing of founder Kate Spade in June last year, at age 55. Although Kate and her co-founder husband Andy Spade had sold their stake in the company in 2006, for many her name spoke to a certain respect for women’s individuality.
“I think she was someone who – and I never met her, so this is my perception – really encouraged women to experiment with fashion,
to have fun with it,” Glass says, noting she kept Kate’s use of colour and attention to detail in mind when creating the debut collection. “There was a purity to [the] design approach that really appealed to me … It’s her name still on the door. I feel like her legacy absolutely will live on in all the work that my team and I do.”
Combining past and present is a delicate balancing act she had already performed in her previous accessories role at Gucci, where she worked alongside Alessandro Michele and Frida Giannini in Tom Ford’s final years at the helm. “With someone like Tom Ford, who has such an amazing vision and is also a really great stylist, I could see that it’s so important to have such a clear vision,” she reflects.
Glass studied jewellery design at Edinburgh Art College, then attended Cordwainers at the London College of Fashion, learning pattern-cutting and how to work with leather. Her knowledge of jewellery has informed her rework of bags at Kate Spade, which come in unexpectedly versatile tones of olive, red and soft pink. “I really love jewellery still and actually when I worked at Gucci I was designing jewellery as well as handbags,” she says. “So much of what defines an accessory brand, aside from the shape and construction of a bag, are the hardware elements.”
To this end, she has reworked the boxy lines of the Spade bags to be slightly softened, stripping out decoration for a sole twist lock in the shape of a spade or, when done up and turned 180 degrees, a heart. In subtle silver with single or dual-toned enamel on saddle bags, they’re the rare indulgence in a decorative element, and also a shape she noted hadn’t been explored often. “I was just surprised they hadn’t used more of it before.”
Her seemingly intuitive way with accessories might be owing to the 13 years she spent at Michael Kors as senior vice-president of accessories. She always liked the way Kors accessorised his shows, making sure they meshed with the overall collection message. “You could see that he really appreciated [them] … they weren’t just an afterthought,” she says, now working to do the same.
The fact Kate Spade ready-to-wear – not solely bags – will be a focus is another risk, but so far it is paying off. Tapestry Inc. recently posted its third quarter 2019 results, with net sales for Kate Spade totalling A$400 million as compared to A$383 million in the corresponding period last year, a four per cent increase. Glass doesn’t want to alienate existing customers with the brand overhaul, but accepts it as a necessity. “You have to recognise you can’t please everyone,” she says, becoming circumspect. “It was about attracting a new customer, and an [existing] customer who just hadn’t found pieces in the more recent years they wanted to buy.” She aims to appeal to women across age groups: jewellery for graduation gifts for young girls; bags for working mothers; and dresses for both. “It’s almost like the third era of the brand,” she reflects. Glass may just have it all wrapped up, no bow required.
“There was a purity to the design approach that really appealed to me. I feel like Kate’s legacy will live on in the work my team and I do”