Kate Spade's best friend remembers the late designer's immense charm and secret sadness in new book: ‘She felt things more deeply than most'
Seven years on, Elyce Arons still misses Kate Spade.
The two pals met in college at the University of Kansas and remained kindred spirits for nearly 40 years. Together, they helped launch Kate Spade New York in the 1990s and had recently started a new accessories brand, Frances Valentine, when Spade took her own life in 2018, at the age of 55.
'I think of her every day,' Arons told The Post. 'I still get choked up talking about her.'
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14 Elyce Arons says she still thinks of her late best friend and business partner Kate Spade every day.
Stefano Giovannini
14 The two first met as dorm mates in college in Kansas.
Courtesy
Spade's death seven years ago shocked the fashion industry. Her cheery, colorful designs made people smile, and she seemed to have a picture-perfect life, with a creative, supportive husband and daughter who adored her.
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In her new book, 'We Just Might Make It After All' (Gallery Books, June 17), Arons writes that Spade had suffered from depression in the months leading up to her death. The two spoke about it and had even 'discussed the suicides of celebrities in the past and [Katy] had said definitively to me, 'I would never, ever do that.''
Arons also writes that Spade 'worshiped her daughter' and that she and husband Andy Spade were 'working out their marriage issues and living separately' but that they 'loved each other to the ends of the earth.'
'She was private about many things, even with me,' she writes. 'A highly sensitive person, she felt things more deeply than most. … We all have dark moments and periods. In one of those moments, she lost hope.'
14 Arons has a new memoir out about her friendship with Spade.
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Arons' charming and effervescent memoir depicts the beloved fashion designer as a fierce friend and driven worker whose intense charisma belied an incredible shyness.
She laughed when her tulle dress caught fire during her wedding reception (the guests dumped their drinks on it to extinguish the flames), lost the cap of her tooth when climbing a tree before a big meeting with the Esteé Lauder Company, and played pranks on her friends.
She was, in short, a delight.
'I feel like so many people remember how she left us, and I want them to remember how she lived,' Arons said. 'She was such a talented person, of course, but such an amazing friend.
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'She was loyal. She had great values. She was authentic. And I know a lot of people thought of her as a girl next door … but she was the clever girl next door.'
Arons and Katy Brosnahan — later known as Kate Spade after she launched her eponymous brand and later married Andy Space — first met in 1981.
It was freshman move-in day at the University of Kansas. Arons arrived from her parents' cattle farm in Sedgwick, Kan., in 'purple parachute pants and scrunched green leather pointy-toed boots.' Spade — who had gone to a private all-girls Catholic school in Kansas City — sported khaki shorts, a polo shirt with a popped collar and Weejun loafers.
14 Spade was known for her bright, cheery fashions, but she struggled with depression.
Boston Globe via Getty Images
'I looked at her and I thought, 'Oh my god, she's boring,'' Arons admitted.
But after they discovered they were both financial-aid students studying journalism (due to a mutual obsession with Mary Tyler Moore) they bonded. One night, while smoking Virginia Slims outside a party, they divulged their family secrets to each other. Arons cried as she recalled losing her older sister to bone cancer at 9 years old, and Spade recounted the pain of her parents' divorce when she was the same age.
'To share that tragedy, finally, with somebody who understood was a big deal,' Arons said.
'That was the moment I knew I had a friend for life.'
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14 'We all have dark moments and periods. In one of those moments, she lost hope,' Arons writes of Spade (above).
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14 Arons writes that Kate and Andy Spade were 'working out their marriage issues and living separately' but that they 'loved each other to the ends of the earth.'
Sylvain Gaboury
The two partied, shopped vintage and studied together. When Spade decided to transfer to Arizona State University — near where her older sister lived — Arons followed her.
'We talked each other into stuff so easily,' Arons said. 'It was like we were attached at the hip.'
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Later, in New York City, Arons worked in fashion PR while Spade was a fashion and accessories editor at Mademoiselle. Spade noticed a lack of good handbag options for the shoots she styled.
So she decided to create her own.
'Coach existed, but it felt like an old traditional leather handbag company and it wasn't aspirational at all,' Arons said. 'Katy saw this void in the market [for a] functional bag that a woman could actually use and that actually accessorized her outfit and made her feel great. That was the brilliance of it.'
14 When debuting her handbag line, Spade decided at the last minute to sew the labels on the outside of the bags.
Boston Globe via Getty Images
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14 In 2006, the Spades, Arons, and business partner Pamela Bell sold the company to Liz Clairborne
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Arons, Spade, Andy and another friend, Pamela Bell, launched Kate Spade New York in 1990. Spade spent her days creating prototypes out of cardboard on the floor of her and Andy's Soho loft, while the others worked nights and weekends to hatch their business plans.
Two days before debuting their bags at the big accessories trade show in Manhattan, Spade decided she wanted their discreet labels sewn on the outside of their vinyl and burlap bags instead of the inside. She, Arons and Bell spent three hours hand-stitching these strips of fabric onto their samples until their fingers bled. But it worked. Barneys and Charivari placed orders. Soon, Saks started carrying them, too.
As the business expanded, their lives changed, too. Katy and Andy got married in 1994. In 1999, Neiman Marcus acquired a 56 percent stake in the brand.
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14 Arons and Spade went on to launch a new fashion company, Frances Valentine.
Courtsey of Elyce Arons
14 The company took its name from Spade's daughter, Frances Beatrix Spade.
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Despite Spade's magnetism she was very shy. Interviews and public speaking made her anxious. Yet, as the brand grew, so did her fame. When Kate Spade launched a fragrance in 2002, Spade had to travel across the country to promote it, often alone.
'That was very hard for her,' Arons said. 'Every single day, a different city by herself. And it wasn't just that she had to speak to people and come up with something clever, but she had to look good … It was just a lot of pressure.'
Their friendship had its ups and downs. 'I had my worst fights with her,' Arons recalled. 'But one of us always called back later and apologized.'
When Arons had her first child, she named her Katy, and asked the Spades to be her godparents. They enjoyed playing pranks on one another. Arons remembers one time that Katy got a giant rubber rat and put it in the kitchen sink for Arons to find. 'That scared the heck out of me!' Arons recalled with a laugh.
14 After Spade's death, Frances Valentine released versions of some of her favorite vintage items, including this caftan.
Courtesy of Frances Valentine
14 This bright cardigan was also among the pieces.
Courtesy of Frances Valentine
In 2006, the Spades, Arons, and Bell sold the company to Liz Clairborne. Arons and Spade still constantly talked about work and fashion, however. They came up with the idea for Frances Valentine after Arons found a pair of orange patent leather pumps she wanted, but balked at the $1200 price tag.
'I thought, 'We can do this for $398, and it would be really great quality,'' Arons recalled. The two launched Frances Valentine (named after Spade's daughter) in 2016 as a shoe and handbag line.
'We were both doing everything,' Arons said. 'It was a blast. It just felt good to be back and have the social life at the office again … And we were pretty much just taking off, and that's when we lost Katy.'
After her friend's death, Frances Valentine released a special limited collection of two vintage pieces from Katy's wardrobe: a light-blue traditional Mexican caftan she wore on vacations and a sweet cable-knit sweater festooned with bright embroidered flowers. 'We called it our Love Katy collection, and our customers went crazy,' Arons said. 'They sold out immediately, so we made them again, and they sold out again, and again.'
14 Arons, pictured in the Frances Valentine showroom, said the pieces have been a way for her to stay connected to her friend.
Stefano Giovannini
Now, Frances Valentine has a full apparel collection, which makes up 60% of the brand's business. Nearly all the pieces are based on items that Spade and Arons picked up on their thrifting adventures and treasured.
It's a way for her to stay connected with her best friend.
'I think about her all the time, especially when I'm steaming something that nobody else notices needs steaming,' Arons said.
14 Arons said their friendship was a 'once in a lifetime' connection.
Stefano Giovannini
'Our friendship was so special,' she added. 'Maybe people get that once in a lifetime.'
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
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Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW 'I'm less concerned about having some random person create some image based on one of my drawings, than I am about killer robots and surveillance and drones,' he said. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. Image Credits:Paul Pope/Archaia You have a gallery show coming up, and it coincides with the second volume of your art book, 'PulpHope.' How did those come about? I got contacted by Boom Studios, I think it was late 2023, and they were interested in possibly collaborating on something [through their boutique imprint Archaia]. So we went back and forth for a bit, I came on as art director, and I was able to hire my own designer, this guy Steve Alexander, also known as Rinzen, and we spent about nine months [in] 2024 putting the book together. And then, coincidentally, I know Philippe Labaune, just from having been to the gallery, we have mutual friends and things, and he made the offer to show work from not only the book, [but] kind of a career retrospective. It's ballooned into something really nice. Are you somebody who thinks about the arc of their career and how it fits together, or are you mostly future-oriented? I'd say a combination of both, because — I have said this elsewhere, but I think at a certain point, an artist needs to become their own curator. Jack Kirby famously said, 'All that matters is the 10% of your best work. The rest of it gets you to the 10%.' But then in my case, I do a lot of variant covers. I've worked on many things outside of comics that are kind of hard to acquire, whether it's screen prints or fashion industry stuff. And I thought it'd be really cool if we do something that's a chronological look at the life of an artist — [something that] focuses mainly on comics, [with] a lot of stuff that people have either never seen or it's hard to find. It's the first of a number of chess moves that I've been setting up for a long time. And the gallery is — I would call it a second chess move. I have another announcement later in the summer for a new project. Making graphic novels is not like making comics. You're basically writing a novel, it can take years, and you work with a contract. No one can see the work, so it can be very frustrating. This stack here, this is my current work, and it's all stuff that basically hasn't been published yet. 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You know, Moebius used to say that sometimes he would draw with coffee grinds, he drew with a fork. And I have some friends, in fact, a number of friends, who are doing highly popular mainstream books, who have gravitated toward digital work, or its various advantages. And I just don't like that. But one thing [is,] I sell original art, and if you have a digital document, you might be able to make a print of it, but there is no drawing. It's binary code. Also, I feel an allegiance to the guys like Alex Toth and Steve Ditko, who took time to teach me things. Moebius, I was friends with him. Frank Miller. We all work in traditional analog art. I feel like I want to be a torchbearer for that. How do you feel about the fact that comics-making is increasingly digital? I think it's inevitable. The genie is out of the bottle at this point. So now it's a matter of being given a new, vivid array of tools that artists can choose from. When you talk to younger artists, do you feel like there's still a lane for them to do analog work? Absolutely. One of the challenges now is, you can download an app, or you can get an iPad Pro and start drawing. I think the learning curve in some ways is a little quicker, and you can fix, edit, and change things that you don't like. But it also means the drawing never ends. One thing I really like about analog art is, it's punishing. [One] piece of advice I got early on was, your first 1,000 ink drawings with a brush are going to be terrible, and you just have to get through those first 1,000. And it was true, it was humiliating — every time I sat down and tried to draw with the brushes, a lot of the work is going to be in your your fingers or your wrists, and it's easy to make mistakes, but gradually you get an authority over the tool, and then you can draw what it is you really see in your mind. Before we started recording, we were also talking about AI, and it sounds like it's something you've been aware of and thinking about. Yeah, sure, I use it all the time. I don't use it for anything creative outside of research. For example, I just wrote an essay on one of my favorite cartoonists, Attilio Micheluzzi. His library is being published by Fantagraphics right now, and I did the intro for the second book. It's amazing, because there's a lot of personal detail about the man that was really, really hard to find, unless you could literally go to — he died in Naples, but he spent a lot of his time in North Africa and Rome. This guy's a man of mystery. But you now can get the dates of his birth and his death, what caused his death, what did he do? And AI helps with that. Or sometimes, I work on story structure. But I don't use it directly to create anything. I use it more like, let's say it's a consultant. My nephew writes [code] and he describes AI as a sociopath personal assistant that doesn't mind lying to you. I've asked AI at times like, 'What books has Paul Pope published?' It's kind of strange, because maybe 80% of it will be correct, and 20% will be completely hallucinated books I've never done. So I tend to take my nephew's point of view on it. You have this skepticism, but you don't want to rule out using it where it's useful. No, absolutely not. It's a tool. It's a very contentious point with cartoonists, and there are important questions about authorship, copyright protection. In fact, I just had dinner with Frank Miller last night, we were talking about this. If [I ask AI to] give me 'Lady Godiva, naked on the horse, as drawn by Frank Miller,' I can spit that out in 30 seconds. Some people might say, 'Oh, this is my art.' But AI doesn't generate the art from the same kind of place that humans would, where it's based on identity and personal history and emotional inflection. It can recombine everything that's been known and programmed into the database. And you could do with my stuff, too. It never looks like my drawings, but it's getting better and better. But I think really, speaking as a futurist, the real question is killer robots and surveillance and a lot of technology being developed very, very quickly, without a lot of public consideration about the implications. Here in New York, at the moment, there's a really great gallery on 23rd Street called Poster House. It's pretty much the history of 20th-century poster design, which is right up my alley. So I went there with my girlfriend last week, and they currently have an exhibit on the atom bomb and how it was portrayed in different contexts through poster art. There was this movement 'Atoms for Peace,' where people were pro-atomic energy [but] were against war, and I kind of liked that, because that's how I feel about AI. I would say, 'AI for peace.' I'm less concerned about having some random person create some image based on one of my drawings, than I am about killer robots and surveillance and drones. I think that's a much more serious question, because at some point, we're going to pass a tipping point, because there's a lot of bad actors in the world that are developing AI, and I don't know if some of the developers themselves are concerned about the implications. They just want to be the first person to do it — and of course, they're going to make a lot of money. Image Credits:Paul Pope/Archaia You mentioned this idea of somebody typing, 'Give me a drawing in the style of Paul Pope.' And I think the argument that some people would make is that you shouldn't be able to do that — or at least Paul should be getting paid, since your art was presumably used to train the model, and that's your name being used. It's a good question. In fact, I was asking AI before our talk today — I think the best thing is to go to the source — 'compare unlicensed art usage [for] AI-generated imagery with torrenting of MP3s in the '90s.' And AI said that there's definitely some similarities, because you're using work that's already been produced and created without compensating the artist. But in the case of AI, you can add elements to it that make it different. It's not like [when] somebody stole Guns N' Roses' record, 'Chinese Democracy,' and put it online. That's different from sitting down with an emulator for music with AI [and saying,] 'I want to write a song in the style of Guns N' Roses, and I want the guitar solo to sound like Slash.' Obviously, if somebody publishes a comic book and it looks just like one of mine, that might be a problem. There's class action lawsuits on the behalf of some of the artists, so I think this is a legal issue that is going to be hammered out, probably. But it gets more complicated, because it's very hard to regulate AI development or distribution in places like Afghanistan or Iran or China. They're not going to follow American legal code. And then on the killer robot side, you've written a lot and drawn a lot of dystopian fiction yourself, like in 'Batman: Year 100.' How close do you feel we are to that future right now? I think we're probably, honestly, about two years away. I mean, robots are already being used on the battlefield. Drones are used in lethal warfare. I wouldn't be too surprised, within two or three years, if we start seeing robot automation on a regular basis. In fact, where my girlfriend lives in Brooklyn, there's a fully robot-serviced coffee shop, no one works there. And the scary thing is, I think people become normalized to this, so the technology is implemented before there's the social contract, where people are able to ask whether or not this is a good [thing]. My lawyer, for example, he thinks within two or three years, Marvel Comics will replace artists with AI. You won't even have to pay any artists. And I think that's completely conceivable. I think storyboarding for film can easily be replaced with AI. Animatics, which you need to do for a lot of films, can be replaced. Eventually, comic book artists can be replaced. Almost every job can be replaced. How do you feel about that? Are you worried about your own career? I don't worry about my career because I believe in human innovation. Call me an optimist. And the one distinct advantage we have over machine intelligence is — until we actually take the bridle off and machines are fully autonomous and have a conscience and a memory and emotional reflections, which are the things that are required in order to become an artist, or, for that matter, a human — they can't replace what humans do. They can replicate what humans do. If you're trying to get into the business of, let's say comics, and you're trying to draw like Jim Lee, there's a chance you might get replaced, because AI has already imprinted every single Jim Lee image in its memory. So that would be easy to replace, but what is harder to replace is the human invention of something like whatever Miles Davis introduced into jazz, or Picasso introduced, along with Juan Gris, when they invented Cubism. I don't see machines being able to do that. You were talking about the discipline needed to draw with a brush, and one of the things I worry about is, if we increasingly devalue the time and the money and everything it takes for somebody to get good at that, you can't decouple the inventiveness of the Paul Pope who comes up with these cool stories with the Paul Pope who spent all his time making drawing after drawing with brushes and ink. If we think we can just focus on coming up with cool ideas, it's not going to work like that. I do think about this. I think it would be very challenging to be 18, 19, having grown up with a screen in front of you, you can upload an app to do anything, within seconds, and that's just not the way most of human history has worked. I mean, I don't think we're at that term 'singularity' yet, but we're getting really close to it. And that's the one thing that worries me is whether we talk about killer machines or machine consciousness overtaking human ingenuity, it would almost be a forfeit on the part of the people to stop having a sense of ethics, a sense of curiosity, determination — all these old school, bootstrap concepts that some people think are old-fashioned now, but I think that's how we preserve our humanity and our sense of soul. The first big collection of your 'THB' comics is coming this fall, and it sounds like that's also a big part of the Paul Pope rebrand or relaunch, the next chess move. Is it safe to assume that one of the other next chess moves is 'Battling Boy 2'? Yes. It's funny, because for a long time, we had it scheduled — 'Battling Boy 2' has to come out before 'THB' comes out. But there was some restructuring with [my publisher's] parent company, Macmillan, and my new art director came on in 2023 and he said, 'You know what, let's just move this around. We're going to start putting 'THB' out. It's already there.' And I was so relieved because, again, 'Battling Boy' is 500-plus pages, and I'd work on it, then I'd stop working to do commercial work. I work on it. I stop. I work on the movie. It's like I'm driving this high performance car, but it doesn't have enough gas in it, so I have to keep stopping and putting gasoline [in it]. So it's been reinvigorating [to have a new book coming out], because it kick-started everything.
