Why is always that the beautiful souls in life who die too early? No-one is to blame for Kate Spade's death. There will be those who will always make the assumptions about intimacy they never knew. Always having something to say like a live news-feed from a disaster where no-one yet knows anything. And perhaps never will.
https://pagesix.com/2018/06/06/yes-people-kept-kate-spade-from-getting-bipolar-help-sister-says/
https://pagesix.com/2018/06/05/sister-says-kate-spade-suffered-from-depression-for-years/?_ga=2.51998633.1863795081.1528279687-31953834.1521902347
https://www.vogue.com/article/kate-spade-mademoiselle-days-remembrance-elizabeth-kiester
I wish I had a brave saintly sibling like her sister. When Kate Spade was worried about 'image' when seeking help for depression she was not arrogant nor wrong. That IS the TRUTH about America but particularly New York. And even more so when one is famous. You are never allowed to be 'down', disheartened, have a bad day. It is a chink in one's armor that could (and certainly will be exploited by your rivals).
What totally disgusts me is that American society never acknowledges its complicity in mental illness. New York is a wondrous city with some wonderful people but it is also inhabited by some downright mean, jealous, malevolent folk in all varying degrees. What possible meaning that attitude could give to one's existence is totally beyond me. I've experienced that for the past 6 years and it is not pleasant.
Friendships are a very rare commodity in New York. And we are not talking 'friends with benefits'! Yuck! Work colleagues for the most part are responsive, respectful, helpful. But to expect more than that from them isn't fair minded. So where do you go when you are feeling blue and sad? For many it is the movies. For me it was. I saw the movies with outcasts. Not the monsters but the human outcasts. Some had fallen in society's cracks but most had committed no crime. They were just different. Sad not successful or liked. But beautiful.
The irony of American success is difference not homogeneity even though everything is geared towards the latter. Kate Spade empowered young women. One could argue, well who needs a bloody handbag as proof of the strength of ME? Does anyone need anything but the basics of food and lodging? I once saw a documentary at MoMA about an Italian man who lived idyllically on a hillside growing his own food, tending the animals who fed him. Blissfully happy.
I look at my Limoges plates, the gorgeous flowers on my Oscar de la Renta, and very occasionally I eat off one of them. Rarely, only when sad. Does one need these? No. Does one need Baccarat glassware? No. But the experience makes one feel that little more special. Crazy. But living is crazy!
What makes one happy? I sold something to a guy that just collects (not deals) in old signage items: petrol pumps, beverage signs etc etc. He was so happy to have my items and showed me exactly where he would put them in his collection. And that in turn made me happy. I came into some money ages ago and could buy whatever I wanted. But I didn't. The things of beauty I have are mostly beautiful to me and not expensive (I know!, cheapskate that I bought at auction, but there's a happiness in that).
As I write this, the insouciance of the girl eating her apple and avoiding my gaze in my Renoir lithograph always makes me smile. (The funny thing is it is not an apple. Nor even a potato! Like: Renoir couldn't paint life! Renoir created a 'bliss'). That's all that matters.
I just remembered going to Sotheby's one day wheeling a suitcase (nice metallic, can't remember make…;) and I overheard a female staff member crossing the road in the other direction for lunch "but it's got a dent in it". Well, yes but so fffffing what?! How much does a battered Louis Vuitton trunk still sell for? !
So am I saying that Kate Spade bore the seeds of her own destruction? Of course not!
If you imprison aspiration what is left in our world? It's all about making a difference. I am 'of an age', well Kate Spade's age, when Apple was like 0.something of market share. A nothing. A nobody. I thought it was an amazing interface but not everyone agreed. Certainly not the market.
Could a handbag change your life? In a very unusual way maybe. That's what Kate Spade saw in lineage of the world's greatest designers. Without innovation we would exist in a mire of mediocrity. Without the Charles James' of this world artisans would have no work. No future and they would have to join the breadline too, some literally some mentally.
The irony of the Kate Spade empire is that Americans, in particular, judge on appearances often ignoring the inner ME. Yet the inner ME of the Kate Spade hand bag is invisible to the naked eye.
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don't much care where.
The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.
Alice: ...So long as I get somewhere.
The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.
exquisite outpourings of female empowerment after Kate Spade's death:
Depression doesn’t care how smart you are, how high you can jump, how much money you have, whether you can make people laugh, or design incredible hand bags. It will rob you of all the beauty you once felt. So it’s crucial we recognized the monster and thief that it is, and fight each day to not let it win. Do all that you can-seek help through therapy, friends, meditation, yoga, whatever. Do everything you can and if it doesn’t work, try again. Be relentless in your fight against it. But also know that victory can be slow and nonlinear. And sometimes you just need to make it through a day, an hour, a minute. — Jill Nagle, New Jersey
My first ‘real’ handbag when I began working in the male-dominated world of finance was a Kate Spade. It was the marker of being a grown-up, and for someone who was the child of immigrants and the first person in my family to work in a formal business environment, owning one of these bags was a badge of honor and made me feel like I belonged to this very intimidating and foreign world. As I write this now, I carry with me every day a Kate Spade purse, wallet, and phone case. My purse is one of her whimsical designs, and strangers will often stop me in the street when they see it. It makes people smile, from children to adults — even people who don’t speak the same language as I do … Mental illness is a silent, lonely killer and affects people from all walks of life, in all kinds of circumstances, whether rich or poor, old or young. This is a reminder for us to be kinder to those in our lives, to be ever watchful for signs, and to always be there for those we love. And please, if you feel hopeless, reach out. Find someone who will listen to you and help you before it’s too late. No one has to suffer alone. — Dottie, San Francisco, Calif.
I owe so much
to those I don't love.
The relief as I agree
that someone else needs them more.
The happiness that I'm not
the wolf to their sheep.
The peace I feel with them,
the freedom –
love can neither give
nor take that.
I don't wait for them,
as in window-to-door-and-back.
Almost as patient
as a sundial,
I understand
what love can't,
and forgive
as love never would.
From a rendezvous to a letter
is just a few days or weeks,
not an eternity.
Trips with them always go smoothly,
concerts are heard,
cathedrals visited,
scenery is seen.
And when seven hills and rivers
come between us,
the hills and rivers
can be found on any map.
They deserve the credit
if I live in three dimensions,
in nonlyrical and nonrhetorical space
with a genuine, shifting horizon.
They themselves don't realize
how much they hold in their empty hands.
"I don't owe them a thing,"
would be love's answer
to this open question.
Thank-You Note-(Wisława Szymborska, translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)
