As one of the many starting presentation of New York Fashion Week this season, Kate Spade brought its classic charm and whimsical touch to 3 World Trade Center—bringing the outdoors, indoors. One turn around the corner, amongst New York City’s glitterati and TikTok’s newest princesses, a spring rainstorm drizzled between rows of models donning the house’s new Spring ’23 collection. With patent rain wear (complete with heeled rain boots), a colorful array of the iconic Sam bag in new renditions, and a wide range of versatile evening wear in some of the boldest and brightest prints you can imagine that can be mixed and matched—there was simply no shortage of the essence of spring, set against a spectacular view of Manhattan. 

Above the clouds, designers Tom Mora and Jennifer Lyu are beaming with joy as they walk me through their first collection since being partnered up as principal designers of Kate Spade New York—reflecting on the many concepts and design points of the collection. 

Tom Mora: Can we walk you through a little bit? 

Kevin Ponce: Absolutely. It’s just like a rainy walk in the park. 

TM: We really wanted to express the joy [of now]. You know, we’ve all been locked up [because of COVID], can’t see our friends, can’t do anything. People are out now and they are thinking about what they look like. We’re all doing it. We’re all enjoying life. With  the beginning of spring, it gets a little cloudy and It rains. But we feel that it still be joyous. This collection really is about the optimism of that feeling, you know? 

KP: I’m quite obsessed with the bags this season.

Jennifer Lyu: These are just some of the expressions of joy, but for handbags. So this first one for example is supposed to be a bouquet of flowers. We work with the best artisans based in India and we give them a specific direction, like ‘give us 3D flowers. What have you got?’ and they come back with like handful of hand cut paillettes–these are couture level.

KP: They’re absolutely stunning. There’s nothing that screams joy more than the accessories this season.

JL:  They’re just beautiful. And we love this idea of the women being dipped in a color or in a print. So that’s why you see solids and all the polkadots with stripes from head to toe, which we really thought was cool. Those are things that are core to our brand, so we always like to lean into that and it always feels right and always feels fresh.

TM: Also just playing with fun colors. Like we love the chartreuse color for spring and mixing it up with navy and pink–we just really had fun with this collection. 

KP: Aside from all the classics, what would you say is something super unexpected in this collection?

TM: I think the fun we had with the rainwear just feels really new, but there’s just such an ease to it. 

KP: Is ease a concentration whenever it comes to Kate Spade designs?

TM: It’s definitely ease. We do a lot of dressy looks, but they should always feel like you–you never want something to wear you. We always want the clothes and the woman to feel like it’s being additive. It’s not making her. It’s just adding to her confidence, her beauty, her joy. 

KP: You can also just put this on any woman and it just works, which is something I’ve always admired about the brand.

JL: We want her to tell her own visual narrative through our pieces. She can make it her own. You don’t have to wear the heels, you can put on sneakers or boots.

KP: I know it’s the 30th anniversary next season, right?

TM: Yes, this is just the beginning. This was all part of us like looking at the last 30 years and really trying to express it through a new lens and a new way of putting it together. A lot of iconic Kate Spade elements are here, but done in a really fresh way. We’re part of this ideation studio, which is all of our senior partners coming together and we create a part of the business. We just really like to brainstorm and try to keep everything very exciting, so there’ll be some really fun stuff coming up so keep your eyes open.