Power Couple

But when the collaboration works, there's unique power in being a power couple. Over the course of a decade, the Spades have navigated the shoals, pushing each other when one grew faint of heart, linking arms against those who would force them into decisions that violated their gut sense of where they should go. They've found a way to combine their individual strengths and compensate for each other's weaknesses, to forge a business that is both commercially successful and a reflection of their own values. And as Kate points out, there's one overriding advantage to their arrangement -- the sense of complete trust each partner has in the other. "Knowing your best interest and the company's best interest is in the forefront of every decision being made without you is really comforting," she says. Adds Andy: "We're just great business partners."

Now, however, both the company and the couple are at a pivotal moment. With blistering competition in the core handbag business, there is increasing pressure to expand product offerings and retail stores. And if that weren't already enough to keep them up at 3 a.m., the couple knows the arrival of a baby will usher in a whole new batch of distractions and stress. For a pair that notoriously has trouble letting go of creative and artistic control, it's a particularly challenging time. "After 10 years, Kate and Andy are at a point where they're poised to grow exponentially," says Peter Arnold, executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. "But they need to loosen up a little bit on their control of the brand and push the envelope in terms of appealing to a broader customer base. That's the inevitable tension that all designers have: How do I stay true to me and yet grow the business?"

For all the fey commentary the Spades generate in the fashion press -- "the Nick and Nora Charles of the design world!" -- in person the pair are unexpectedly down-to-earth, smart, and irreverent. Like many married couples, they finish each other's sentences. Andy, 42, the actor David Spade's older brother, has the family aptitude for deadpan humor. Kate has a dry wit, an Irish girl's raucous laugh, and a soft spot in her heart for her spoiled Maltese, Henry.

They're small -- what Kate likes to refer to as "fun-sized"; Kate is 5'2", Andy, 5'5". Kate is stylish without the intimidating edge of New York fashionistas; sure there's that signature cocktail ring, but it's paired with a working girl's cardigan buttoned over a maternity top. Andy prefers the look of the slightly rumpled ad agency creative director to that of fashion industry CEO: longish hair, jeans, a checked shirt, a corduroy jacket, a baseball cap, and nails bitten to the quick.

Both hail from the Midwest and acknowledge that heartland style and values still serve as touchstones in their "New York Lite" design aesthetic. Andy was born in Michigan and moved to Arizona at age 9. Kate Brosnahan was the fifth child of six in an Irish Catholic family in Kansas City. The two met while in college at Arizona State. After graduation, Kate headed to New York where she bunked with four other girls in a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in Hell's Kitchen. To help pay the rent, she took a temp job that led to an editorial assistant's position at Mademoiselle magazine for $14,500. Andy remained in Tempe running his first business -- a small ad agency, which, despite its size, was named one of the state's "Top 10 New Companies" in 1987. "A bad year for business in Arizona," he cracks.

The following year, Andy followed Kate to New York where the two found a tiny apartment in SoHo. Andy took a job at Bozell & Jacobs, then zigzagged up the advertising career ladder. Kate climbed the masthead at Mademoiselle, becoming, at 28, senior fashion editor covering accessories. While her career was moving along briskly, the road ahead held little appeal. "I wanted to do something I could get interested in," she says. "I told Andy, 'I just want something that will keep me busy.' Trouble was, I couldn't think of what that was."

Andy suggested she launch a line of accessories. Kate was flabbergasted. "I said, 'Andy, you don't just start!'" But Andy was insistent. She could design, and he'd work to pay the rent and provide the capital. "I thought we could do it for a year, and if it didn't work out, she could go back to the magazine," he says.

Andy, the visionary, has the audacious idea. Kate, frugal and more conservative, executes the product with style and an exacting attention to detail.

It was the first indication, perhaps, of a pattern that the two would repeat over the next 10 years: Andy, the visionary, has the audacious idea; Kate, frugal and more conservative, executes the product with style and an exacting attention to detail. The result was a series of fresh, yet precisely rendered breakthrough designs delivered on a shoestring.