In light of iconic fashion designer, Kate Spade‘s apparent suicide, the final ad campaign for her Frances Valentine brand conveys an extremely eerie message.
Just four months before her tragic death on Tuesday, Spade’s latest fashion venture released its final ad campaign celebrating its founder with the question, “Where is Kate?”
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The new commercial, which have since been deleted from the brand’s social media pages, show an actress portraying Spade with her signature hair and fashion flair, fleeing from a detective, played by her husband, Andy, who also wrote and served as the executive producer for the mysterious campaign.
In the last scene of the commercial set to whimsical music, the actress portrayed Spade is nowhere to be found as the detective chases down a Frances Valentine bag washing away into the ocean.
According to CNBC, the objective of the message was to highlight how the woman behind the iconic Kate Spade brand was now at the front of Frances Valentine. In 2006, Spade sold her better-known namesake brand, Kate Spade New York to Neiman Marcus and legally changed her name to Kate Valentine.
While many of the ill-timed campaign commercials have vanished off the face of its social pages, videos and marketing images are still up on social media accounts, including an image of totes spattered with the question and an older commercial from February, with an actress portraying Spade running out into a garden.
Spade, 55, died by suicide at her Upper East Side apartment on Tuesday morning. Found by the family housekeeper at 10:20 a.m., autopsy reports state Spade hung herself with a red scarf tied to her bedroom doorknob, though it is still unclear when she actually passed.
Spade’s husband of more than 20 years, Andy Spade, released a statement on Wednesday denying reports of her apparent suicide death stemming from marital troubles. In text messages sent to the Wall Street Journal, he called her sudden passing “devastating and a total shock to my family.”
“We were not going through a divorce,” he wrote. “We had an amicable separation and had dinner with our daughter and got along and were trying to work things out.”
In his longer statement, Andy provided more details of their strained familial situation.
“For the past 10 months we had been living separately, but within a few blocks of each other,” he wrote. “Bea was living with both of us and we saw each other or spoke every day. We ate many meals together as a family and continued to vacation together as a family. Our daughter was our priority.”
He went on to state how they were “not legally separated” and have “never even discussed divorce.”
“We were best friends trying to work through our problems in the best way we knew how,” Andy said. “We were together for 35 years. We loved each other very much and simply needed a break.”
Andy went on to blast the media against reports of a suicide note, which many sources say was addressed to their daughter, Frances Beatrix Spade.
“I have yet to see any note left behind and am appalled that a private message to my daughter has been so heartlessly shared with the media,” he said.
In an earlier statement, Andy and the family said they were “heartbroken” and “miss her already.”
Spade, 55, died by suicide at her Upper East Side apartment on Tuesday morning. Found by the family housekeeper at 10:20 a.m., autopsy reports state Spade hung herself with a red scarf tied to her bedroom doorknob, though it is still unclear when she actually passed.
Spade and her husband Andy met in college at Arizona State University, later moving together to New York City where the two built her fashion empire from the ground up.
If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
