First Look: Kate Spade Spring ‘19 Preview Capsule Collection By Nicola Glass

Kate Spade just debuted the brand new Spring 2019 Preview Capsule Collection by Nicola Glass’s. This collection is the first accessories collection by new Creative Director Nicola Glass, featuring with two new handbag shapes and a whole new design motif inspired by the spade. This is the first collection by Nicola Glass since the brand’s founder Kate Spade passed away in June 2018.

The debut Spring 2019 Preview Capsule Collection by Nicola Glass is playful, quirky, colorful, and intelligent–just as you can expect from the legendary brand. Nicola Glass has taken the brand motifs of Kate Spade and, like any good designer, she’s reinterpreted them with her own style.

For Glass, the heart of the Kate Spade brand is the spade. If you look closely at the collection, the shape is everywhere; often artfully hidden in plain sight. It appears as a closure on the Nicola bag, woven into the interlocking leather pieces of the Dorie bucket bag, splashed across scarves, and in the textile lining of bags. Glass has created a clever overlapping heart-and-spade design, a theme that’s in her Spring 2019 ready-to-wear collection as well. “Like a floral pattern made entirely out of spades. In fact, there are secret spades throughout [the collection],” Glass tells Vogue.

Handbags and accessories are the cornerstone of the Kate Spade business model; New York-based Tapestry — which also owns Coach and Stuart Weitzman — said sales of handbags and accessories helped fuel a 31-percent spike in fourth quarter revenues as of August 2018.

Glass has found an incredible way to improve Kate Spade accessories: the quality of everything from leathers to the finishings have been upgraded with no change in price point.

The collection feels like it’s a part of the Kate Spade world but a little more cool and a little less precious. Glass was inspired by the youthful spirit and vintage clothing for her first ready-to-wear line. “I didn’t want to come from a very thematic approach with the collection; it was looking at some of those key foundations of the color, the silhouette, but in a way that we wanted to make feel very modern and not vintage-y in any way,” Glass told to fashionista.com.

It’s not surprising that Glass’s starting point for the brand was in the handbags, given that her background is in leather goods and jewelry design. Designer Nicola Glass joined Kate Spade in January of 2018 following 13 years at Michael Kors, where she was senior vice president of accessories design, and at Gucci under Tom Ford.

Spring 2019 Kate Spade Handbags By Nicola Glass

The Nicola. This medium-sized shoulder bag features an adjustable crossbody strap with jewelry-like metal detailing, a subtle plunge on each slip pocket, said to be a nod to the curves of the spade, and easy-open twistlocks or magnetic snaps. Each shoulder bag has a feminine yet structured silhouette featuring soft rounded corners. The details on these bag are incredible. It comes in a few different colors and styles, all based around the same silhouette.

The Nicola Twistlock features a super cute interlocking heart-that-turns-into-a-spade twistlock with a (very) satisfying heart ‘click’ closure. Then there’s the Nicola Flora Spade Medium Shoulder bag, crafted from smooth and patent leather using a 3D-printed emboss technique developed with an Italian tannery.  There’s a more subdued and minimal Nicola Medium Shoulder Bag with a small black enamel spade, which will likely become a staple part of this collection, as most daytime handbag wearers prefer subtly.

kate spade black nicola floral spade medium shoulder bag, $448

kate spade bright pink nicola floral spade medium shoulder bag, $448

nicola roasted fig medium shoulder bag, $358

kate spade nicola bicolor medium shoulder bag, $398

The Dorie bucket bag is the highlight piece of the collection. The basket/bucket bag style is created from stacked spades made of intricate laser-cut leather. This application with leather is unique and on-brand for Kate Spade, appearing like small scallops around the top of the bag, but it also kind of looks interlocking upside-down hearts. The Dorie comes in medium ($398) and large ($498) with an open structure handcrafted from bonded leather with a silky-soft faille drawstring pouch snaps that in and out. I can already picture it on the arms of girls in New York already.  I feel like this bag would be very Blair Waldorf.

Shop the Spring 2019 Capsule Collection at Kate Spade

What do you think of the new collection by Nicola Glass? Do you like it? Would you carry any of these bags?

all images copyright 2018 Kate Spade New York