Eva Erdmann took the helm at Kate Spade New York in the fall of 2024, and has been tasked with leading a turnaround at the fashion brand, owned by Tapestry. The brand’s revenue has been in decline for multiple quarters, but Erdmann is looking to right the ship by streamlining the business and targeting Gen Z consumers nostalgic for the ’90s and attracted to the whimsy of the brand. South African singer Tyla recently became a brand ambassador, and other campaigns have featured Ice Spice, Laufey, and Charli D’Amelio.
Whether it’s in fashion, culture, or politics, “Gen Z is the most influential generation ever in history,” Erdmann believes. She is also tapping into the brand’s sense of fun, from animal-shaped bags to accessories that nod to Kate Spade’s New York City heritage, like a bagel-shaped bag charm or a wallet designed to look like a Metro Card. “Today, in this world, where everything feels very heavy and uncertain and fragmented and isolated at the same time, I think that a brand that brings optimism and joy and lightness has a role to play—has always had a role to play—but even more today, and that’s really what we are building at at Kate Spade,” Erdmann says.
The brand, named after co-founder Kate Spade, was launched in 1993 with just six handbag designs. The founders sold it to Neiman Marcus in 2006. The business was later bought by Liz Claiborne, which was then acquired by Tapestry for $2.4 billion in 2017. Designer Spade died in 2018, having changed her name to Kate Valentine in 2016 to “separate the two worlds.”
The fashion brand has become known the world over. “I deeply believe that great brands do more than selling products,” says Erdmann. “They shape culture…they bring a vision on the world, they help people feel differently about themselves, or they solve something for them.”
Erdmann made the leap to Kate Spade New York from the beauty business, having spent much of her career at L’Oréal, most recently serving as global president of Urban Decay at the company.
TIME spoke with her earlier this year about navigating that transition, her turnaround effort, and how she’s seeking to preserve the brand’s history.
(This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.)
You’ve now been in your role coming up to a couple of years. You were previously at L’Oréal. What lessons did you learn through that transition into the world of fashion?
I’ve always been very interested in brands with a strong heritage and that have a story to tell, that have a vision on the world, and I’ve always thought that it’s such a precious gift, when you’re given a brand with a heritage that you have not only to keep alive, but to reinvent, to modernize for a new generation of consumer. I am very grateful that I worked for brands with fantastic heritage throughout my career, whether it is beauty or now with Kate Spade, so the transition felt very natural to me, and there is much more overlap than we think between the two industries, because at the end of the day, we’re talking about an emotional product, we are talking about brands that are doing more than selling products, we are talking about brands that are bringing a vision to the world, offering a very emotional connection with the consumer, so in that sense there is so much similarity between those two industries that it made the transition easier.
I think what I brought from the beauty industry and the CPG (consumer packaged goods) background is that discipline around the consumer, the consumer being at the center of everything, testing before we invest, really organizing everything around the consumer, and also about the discipline to build hero products that you know you’re going to become known for. When you build a hero product, you are also building trust with your consumer, because then they know that if they buy something, it’s going to still be relevant the next season or the year after, so, when they start investing in that product, you’re also building that trust for them in the long term.
Is there anything that has surprised you since you joined?
Even before I joined Kate Spade, every time I would talk about this brand to friends or acquaintances, they would never tell me, “Oh, I love the brand” or “I love this handbag.” They would always tell me a story—the first handbag they bought for their first job, or the first bag their mother gave to them for their graduation party, or the bag their sister gave to them for that very specific life moment, for their engagement party. Always a very emotional story. That was something I’ve never seen for any other brands. So I came with the conviction that there was a very special emotional connection with the consumer.
What was the surprise when I joined is that it’s even more than what I thought, and the data confirmed that impression. What I discovered through the data after joining is that Kate Spade has a fantastic awareness in the U.S. Everybody knows this brand. A brand with this emotional connection, that’s very unique. We receive thousands of letters every month from consumers—and it’s not letters to ask for discounts or promotions—it’s letters to tell us how much they love the brand. So, we’ve created a wall in the office. I discovered it when I joined the brand, and that feeling I had before joining, it was already very strong, but after joining, when I saw that, it was a fantastic surprise, because you feel you’ve discovered treasure, and the treasure is this emotional connection that this brand has with the consumer today.
Does that add an additional layer of pressure, making sure that you maintain the core elements that make people love the brand, while going through a transition with the business, and not tarnishing that?
It makes the mission even more meaningful because this brand is iconic. In the ’90s, this brand was everywhere. It was a social phenomenon, you couldn’t escape the brand, it was everywhere in the street. So it makes the mission very precious and meaningful to me, and also I always say to my teams, you have to move forward, you have to look backwards. What I mean with that is that you have to respect the true essence of a brand, you have to go back to what made the brand very distinctive and very unique at the beginning. What made the brand successful at the beginning, and when you understand that essence [and] vision, then it becomes your compass for everything you do. Kate Spade brought a new vision of femininity in the ’90s, [when] if you wanted to be successful in your career, you had to dress like a man. You needed to have the big shoulders, the suit, the serious suitcase, and Kate Spade came with a very different vision. She offered a handbag that was still very functional, made for work, but also this touch of femininity, touch of wit, and she actually gave the freedom to women to be feminine and have a career at the same time, to be feminine and be a mother at the same time. That was a very interesting approach, and it was a revolution.
When you stay true to that really distinctive vision at the beginning, then it can live forever, because what it means to be feminine in 2026 is maybe not the same as in the ’90s, but this is the essence of the brand. We spend hours unboxing bags from the Kate Spade era, from the first years, really looking at all the thoughtful details, the vision of that moment was incredible—the interior, the hardware—I want to start from there, from the true beginning of the brand, and reintroduce it to a new generation of consumers today, that’s really the idea.
This is a challenging moment for the sector—there’s a lot of competition, particularly at the same price point, and you’re going through a strategic shift that partly explains revenue declines in recent quarters. Could you tell me more about the strategy for the business and how you’re thinking about standing out in the crowd?
This is a very competitive market, but we have a very enviable position, today, because 25 million young women are turning 18 every year, and they’re looking for their first handbag, and especially their first luxury handbag, and we are here for them at that moment, and that has always been our positioning, and not everyone can claim this positioning. Even more than talking to Gen Z, I’m talking really about this point of market entry, when the consumer wants to buy that first very serious and luxurious handbag, and it’s who we are.
In terms of strategy, and what you’ve been seeing in the results lately, we are really focused on strengthening the foundation of this brand, and we’ve been really focused on strengthening the product and building the hero product. We’ve been very, very focused on improving, elevating the store experience, but overall the whole consumer experience across all the touch points with something that’s very cohesive and consistent. We’ve been very focused into putting back on the promotion and reducing our dependency on promotions and discounting. We’ve been very focused on upgrading our talents and welcoming new talents to the team as well, and most importantly, investing to reconnect or to introduce the brand with this new generation of consumer and present to them this uplifting vision of luxury, and investing more in brand marketing for the long-term for them. And of course we are making some actions today that are impacting the short-term intentionally, because we want to rebuild not only for growth but we want to rebuild for the long-term and for something healthy, so we’ve been closing stores that were not profitable, and this is what we’re optimizing. This is all intentional, as we are building something that is here to last.
What new skill sets or types of talent are you seeking for the next stage of the business’s evolution?
We’ve been reinforcing the teams where we knew we had to bring a difference, so we’ve been reinforcing the marketing teams, so that we could really build this vision, build the brand, build that connection. We’ve been reinforcing the design teams as well. We have newcomers coming into the design team as well, because product is everything, and we have to have the right product. And we’ve been reinforcing, as well, the consumer insight teams, and the way we work with the consumer, because one of my convictions is that we have to test before we invest, and even more, when you are in a transformation process, you have to go fast, you have to take some risk, but when you test before you invest, when you really listen to the consumer, it allows you to test new ideas, break through things that you do very differently, but know before you start investing—whether it is in the product, whether it is in a campaign, or a new store design.
You mentioned the 18-year-old buying her first handbag. Does Gen Z account for most of your customers today?
We are really focused on acquisition of Gen Z, and why? I was in Asia recently, and from Singapore to San Francisco, what I’m hearing is the same thing—and I’ve never seen a generation so homogeneous in the way they think—they want more connection, they want small moments of lightness and joy. Today, the world is fragmented for them, it’s very anxious, so they’re really craving this real-life moment. And this is where our brand has something to play, and where we have a very true connection with the consumer, because this really has always been our positioning, sparking joy that spread, sparking the little moments, being there for the life moments, and bringing some touch of lightness and fun. This is our positioning, and this is what the Gen Z consumer is looking for today. So, there is something that’s very natural between what they’re looking for, what they desire to see, and even what we can offer to them.
How do you think about the other generations that have grown up with Kate Spade? As a brand, it cuts across Gen X, Millennials, and now Gen Z. How are you thinking about catering to those different consumers?
We love all our consumers, and you’re right, that we’re talking to all consumers today, and very connected to all of them. That said, what the data is telling us is Gen Z is the most influential generation ever in history, and not only in fashion or handbags—across the board, in politics, and everything, and that’s fascinating. And what we see in your, in our data, is that when you start being relevant for Gen Z, when you start being appealing for them, and when they start being obsessed with you, there is a trickle down effect on every other generation, and when you start winning with Gen Z, quickly you see as well the other generations, Millennial and Gen X, growing at the same time. This is the impact they have on other generations today. So this is almost like the halo effect of winning with Gen Z that we see today.
The current ’90s resurgence ties in nicely with the history of the brand as well.
Totally, I mean they’re all about nostalgia. At the same time, I don’t want to position the brain on nostalgia. What’s interesting is what they’re looking for. They are nostalgic of a moment they have never lived. They’re nostalgic of a moment where we had no phones in high schools, where people would talk to each other, where they would have parties with no reports afterwards, with all the pictures. This is that connection moment, this real-life moment that they’re nostalgic about. And this is where it’s interesting that this is what we can bring to them, not necessarily going into the nostalgia of how it looked—it’s also about what it meant. That’s the most important, I believe.
As a CEO, what are the metrics that you pay most attention to in the business?
As a CEO, you’re going to always track the lagging indicators, right? Your sales and your acquisition. When you are in a transformation, when you are in a reinvention, you have to pay attention as much on all the leading indicators, all the metrics that are telling you about your brand health, because this is what you are rebuilding. The connection with the consumer, how they see the brand, all the consumer insights, how they see the brand in their world, how they consider the brand, so the consideration, the engagement they have, the Google search as well—which kind of consumer, and how you’re acquiring the consumer—is also critical on the long term. So, tracking all those metrics that tell you about the brand health is critical in this transformation, because there are also early indicators that you are on the right path, that this is what’s happening for the brand. So, this is what I’m tracking, and I’m also tracking very closely the teams, and team engagement, how they’re doing, because what we often forget is that a brand transformation is first of all a human transformation, and how you create the space and the culture for people to test new things, to be creative, to feel very passionate about the brand is also something very important to monitor in this moment of transformation.
