A 35-year fashion veteran, Elyce knows a thing or two about business and style. She famously chased her passion for fashion all the way from Kansas to New York City alongside her best friend, Kate, and co-founded Kate Spade in 1993. Elyce shepherded the company from inception to international success, growing it into one of the most iconic brands in modern fashion history—and was instrumental in its 2006 sale to Neiman Marcus Group. In 2016, Elyce, Kate, and Andy Spade launched Frances Valentine as an evolution of their joyful style aesthetic; a brand with heart, soul, and a story to tell. Today, Frances Valentine celebrates the power of personal style through clothes and accessories that boost your mood and tell a story. Elyce’s critically acclaimed book, We Might Just Make It After All, debuted in June 2025 and chronicles her decades-long best friendship and business partnership with Spade.
Elyce has been featured on Good Morning America and The Today Show, and in publications including WWD, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, and Forbes. She lives in NYC with her husband and three daughters. When she’s not running a global brand, you’ll find her gardening, playing tennis, or perusing the colorful stalls of a vintage market.
That time taught me that resilience isn’t just about powering through. It is about being able to sit with uncertainty, loss, and even fear, and still move forward. After Katy passed, it wasn’t just about keeping a business alive—it was about carrying forward her spirit, her sense of style, and her joy in the world. I learned that honoring someone’s legacy doesn’t mean replicating what they did; it means evolving the design with their values in mind.
Founding a company with your best friend is both a gift and a high-wire act. My advice is to choose someone who shares your values—and be sure you have different strengths. Katy and I had very different approaches to things, but we deeply respected each other’s instincts. Also: communicate constantly. And laugh. A lot.
For us, creativity thrives when we allow room for curiosity and humor. At Frances Valentine, we don’t start with “what’s trending”—we start with “what brings us joy?” Whether it’s a print that makes us smile or a color that reminds us of a vintage find, we give those instincts permission to lead. Then we refine, refine, refine.
Surrounding myself with good people. People who are kind, smart, honest, gracious and unafraid to take risks. A sense of humor is key. We all have to be able to laugh at ourselves.
I have to mention two: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her quiet tenacity, intellect, and commitment to justice continue to inspire me—not just as a woman, but as a leader. My mother is a hero to me as well. She juggled four children, worked on our farm, cooked three meals a day every day and yet was stylish and continued her work an artist at the same time.
My morning coffee and my dog are in a dead tie. Both help me greet the day with optimism. I also love the NYC subway. I am constantly in awe of the engineering behind it and well it works to get us to where we need to go every day so quickly.
I’m excited to see personal style take center stage again. People are embracing color, eccentricity, and individuality in a way that feels very fresh—but also timeless. It’s less about “what’s in” and more about “what feels like me.”
Definitely, the Mary Tyler Moore show shaped who I became as a woman. Mary Richards showed generations of women we could be strong, smart, confident business women but also be feminine, funny and stylish. She was a cultural icon. Her spirit guided a lot of how I wrote this book.
