American fashion design house Kate Spade New York, a Tapestry Inc. brand, announced that Nicola Glass, creative director of Kate Spade, has decided to depart the organization on April 1. The brand has commenced a search for a head of product design who will lead design across all categories, including handbags and accessories, ready-to-wear, jewelry, footwear, and licensed categories.
As a result, the brand has developed a new creative organizational structure resulting in the formation of two key roles: senior vice president, brand concept and strategy and head of product design. These leaders will partner with Jenny Campbell, senior vice president, chief marketing officer, and Michele Parsons, senior vice president, chief merchandising officer.
“We are grateful to Nicola for her contributions to Kate Spade,” said Liz Fraser, CEO and brand president of Kate Spade. “Nicola helped us to take important steps forward, including rebuilding the core of our handbag assortment and enhancing our product quality, while creating iconic and proprietary elements that distinguish our brand. She has also established an incredibly talented design team who will continue to honor our brand’s legacy and drive our business into the future.”
Kristen Naiman, who has served as senior vice president, brand creative at Kate Spade for the past seven years, will assume the role of senior vice president, brand concept and strategy, effective April 1. She will be responsible for the creation, publication and socialization of brand storytelling platforms on a regular cadence, helping set the vision and lead the creation of all brand elements across customer touchpoints, as well as annual and seasonal concept, print and color direction. She will report directly Fraser.
“Kate Spade is a unique global lifestyle brand with a loyal and passionate following,” Fraser said. “Over the past year, we’ve worked diligently to build a strong foundation for our future. We have made significant progress, refocusing on our core collection and bringing newness to the assortment to reflect the brand’s distinct DNA. To build on this success, we recognized an opportunity to modernize our approach and processes to fuel innovation and better serve our customers. As a result, we’ve reimagined our creative structure, centered on collaboration, to position us to more fully deliver on our brand promise across every customer interaction with clarity and cohesion. I am incredibly optimistic for our future and confident that these changes will further position us to win with our customer in product, innovation, digital, community and storytelling.”
