Jonathan Saunders, the Scottish-born designer whose colour-driven aesthetic defined eras at Diane von Furstenberg and Mary Katrantzou, has been named executive creative director of Kate Spade, becoming the first person to hold the role in five years. His appointment marks Tapestry’s most decisive bet yet that the accessible-luxury brand can recapture the cultural relevance it enjoyed in the early 2010s, when its playful Manhattan-girl energy resonated across a much narrower, more distinctive aesthetic territory.
The risk is that the assignment asks Saunders to do too much. Kate Spade’s challenges are not merely creative: the brand’s retail footprint is overextended, its e-commerce conversion rates lag, and its customer base skews older than the millennial sweet spot that powered its original growth. Design alone cannot fix those structural issues. But without design — without a point of view that makes the product worth talking about — no amount of operational excellence will restore the brand’s lost momentum.
Saunders brings a skill set that Kate Spade has never fully deployed: a refined command of colour, print, and proportion that can elevate a brand without alienating its core customer. His work at Diane von Furstenberg demonstrated an ability to make joyful, pattern-rich clothing that still read as sophisticated — precisely the register that Kate Spade needs to recapture. At Mary Katrantzou, he proved he could manage a design house known for maximalist print work, suggesting he can handle the graphic identity that has always been central to Kate Spade’s appeal.
The Tapestry playbook for this revival is clear: give Saunders the same long-term brand-building discipline that fueled Coach’s remarkable turnaround under Stuart Vevers. Coach’s resurgence was not the product of a single season’s collection but of years of consistent design language, disciplined distribution, and a clear understanding of which consumer the brand served. If Tapestry applies the same patience to Kate Spade, Saunders has a genuine shot at rebuilding what was once one of the most recognisable names in accessible luxury.
Kate Spade has spent the past half-decade adrift. After its founder departed and the brand was absorbed into the Tapestry portfolio alongside Coach and Stuart Weitzman, the label cycled through design directors and creative strategies without ever landing on a coherent vision. Sales plateaued, the brand’s identity blurred between sugary preppy and corporate minimalist, and it lost ground to contemporary rivals such as Tory Burch and Marc Jacobs that had clearer design signatures.
