One of the most established luxury brands for handbags today is Kate Spade, New York. Being ethically woke nowadays and protesting for abuses such as fighting for animal welfare and/or conduct when it comes to labor and employment, how is Kate Spade as a brand? Let’s find out. Is Kate Spade Ethical?
Kate Spade New York as a Brand
Kate Spade New York was founded by the late Katherine Noel Brosnahan-Spade, together with her husband Andy, in 1993. After graduating, Kate started as a style editor for the brand Mademoiselle in 1986. She later left the brand in 1991, leaving a senior editor and head of accessories position to pursue her line of handbags. Kate found inspiration for her bags from browsing through secondhand and thrift stores as well as local flea markets, while her husband Andy supported her financially by giving her $35,000 to fund her bags’ production.
Kate Spade’s debut line of handbags was imbued with classic colors, fabrics, and shapes, with the upper-middle class as the brand’s target market. The brand worked its way up at a snail’s pace until it eventually made a name for itself on the social ladder and is now a well-known luxury brand for bags, jewelry, and accessories, dresses and clothing, home essentials such as glass and dinnerware, as well as bed and bath essentials.
In July 2017, Tapestry, Inc. formerly known as Coach, expanded its company and bought Kate Spade and Company for $2.4 billion. In June 2018, Kate Spade committed suicide at the age of 55, leaving behind her fortune, fame, husband and business partner Andy, and daughter.
Knowing the brand’s history and the owner’s lost battle with mental illness, how does Kate Spade New York fare in terms of being ethical?
Labor and Employment
Kate Spade has production plants in China and in Africa, countries with an extremely high risk of labor abuse. However, Kate Spade assures them of providing a good working environment for their employees. Their Code of Conduct for their plant in China includes policies regarding the prohibition of child and involuntary labor, worker abuse, as well as discrimination. They also incorporate freedom of association, wages and benefits, regulated working hours, and health and safety, especially now with the rising threat of the coronavirus.
They also have a factory situated in the remote and desolate village of Masoro, Rwanda, Africa. This village has no reliable running water, electricity, or even an access road. However, Kate Spade still chose the said factory despite not meeting the required manufacturing facilities and workers. This is done to empower women, who make up the majority of their workers, despite the increase in budget needed for manufacturing and training to meet the standard of quality required for their products.
Animal Welfare
In June 2018, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, released a statement regarding Kate Spade’s compliance with their standard regarding the treatment of animals. The brand responded to PETA’s campaign after seeing their advertisement regarding the cruelty to rabbits. The company banned the use four decades ago and also put angora wool on their list of animal products not to use.
However, the same organization called them out in November 2020 after finding out that Kate Spades uses mohair and alpaca fleece in the production of their sweaters and scarves, with a thorough accusation that these animals went through abusive and barbaric treatment. The brand has also been listed by Cruelty-Free Investing, stating that Kate Spade and Company exploit animals for leather that is used for many of their products.
Despite not using exotic animal skin, angora wool, and fur, the company still falls short of ethical practice due to the use of leather, alpaca fleece, mohair, and exotic animal hair.
Environmental Impact
Kate Spade and Company failed to publicize relevant information regarding their production processes. For this reason, they cannot receive high ratings for being ethical in terms of practicing ethical environmental policies. The Higgs Materials Sustainability index also rates the use of fleece to create textiles as highly damaging to the environment, ranking it second. The use of mohair is also linked with environmental hazards because it produces an immense amount of methane from manure and slaughter waste that causes contamination of water and land.
Even with the use of sustainable materials such as cork, straw, and others, the company still fails to be listed as eco-friendly for many reasons.
Conclusion
Kate Spade and Company have gone through a lot of things in the past 3 decades, from being a single store to becoming one of the most well-known luxury brands. And being ethical in many aspects, such as employment, the environment, and animal welfare, has been a rough ride for the company. Despite that, we know that they could still improve in those areas to be fully ethical.
FAQs
- Can you cancel/change your order online?
Kate Spade does not allow canceling or changing your purchased item once it’s already checked-out and the processing has begun. You can, however, return your order and refund it once it has been received.
- How can you contact Kate Spade?
You can either call them though 866-999-5283 or email at customer_care@katespade.com
