Serenely, handbag designer Kate Spade sits within the encircling noise and commotion, her dark curls clipped to her head with bobby pins and a rhinestone barrette. "You can see how a small business is run," she says, "Or not run."
It seems to be running quite beautifully, actually. Spade, from a large Irish Catholic family with patrician good looks in Kansas City, Mo., started designing snappy, classic, inexpensive handbags only three years ago, and already her collections are sold at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys New York, Harvey Nichols in London, and in many stores in Japan. The fashion cognoscenti were quick to embrace her designs, and recently the fashion community surprised her with a Council of Fashion Designers of America Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent. At the black tie ceremony at New York City's Lincoln Center, which honored other industry leaders like Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Tom Ford of Gucci, Spade showed the evening's most entertaining video -- two girls drag racing through suburbia to reach a Kate Spade handbag first.
Spade's business partner is her husband, Andy Spade, brother of "Saturday Night Live" alum and "Black Sheep" star David Spade. The two first met when they worked at a Brooks Brothers-type men's clothing store in Phoenix, Arizona, while attending Arizona State University. Andy drove an old BMW that rarely worked, so Kate ended up driving him home, and a relationship flourished. After graduation, Kate toured through Europe, but didn't have enough money to get back to Arizona; in fact, by the time she arrived in New York City, she had only $2 left in her pocket. She crashed at a friend's and went to a temp agency the next day to make some quick cash. They sent her over to help out in the fashion department at Mademoiselle magazine, fetching coffee and steaming clothes; she stayed for five years, rising to Senior Fashion Editor.
