• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, March 20, 2025

Three decades after the Sam bag helped launch Kate Spade into fashion fame, the brand is relaunching the silhouette in a high-stakes move to win over Gen Z. The company hopes that a campaign introducing the new collection, including a mini silhouette and new colors, will introduce younger fashion fans to the 1990s classic.

Kate Spade New York, now owned by Tapestry, debuted Sam, the company’s first handbag, in 1993.

“Sam captured a visionary tension that women were craving, sparking a revolutionary change in the handbag market,” said Eva Erdmann, Kate Spade’s CEO and brand president, in the announcement. “It perfectly captured the ‘90s aesthetic by embracing the minimalist fashion trend in a way that hadn’t been seen before…and we know that sense of nostalgic appeal wins big with Gen Z.”

The company also tapped that ‘90s energy behind the lens, hiring Whitney Pozgay, a former design team member and niece of brand founder Kate Brosnahan Spade, along with Amir Zia, a former Kate Spade art director.

The campaign follows a group of road-tripping friends driving a convertible through the American West. A fashion cliché? Maybe not. “We know that for Gen Z, friendships are everything – they serve as her constant, an opportunity to escape and create connections,” Erdmann adds.

The campaign is more than a nostalgic nod -- it’s a calculated move to restore momentum to a brand that’s been struggling to keep pace with its sister label, Coach. And Tapestry is well aware of how lucrative a beloved bag could be. In financial results released last month, the company said that Coach’s Tabby line accounts for more than 10% of the brand’s sales and is a key element of recent growth.

Coach’s sales increased 11% in the most recent quarter, reaching $1.71 billion. That brand added 2.7 million new customers in North America. Half of them are Gen Z and millennials.

Conversely, Kate Spade’s sales sank 10% to $416.4 million. In a call webcast for investors, Tapestry executives say that Kate Spade will now focus on “execution and investment to drive long-term growth, with a new CEO and strategies to streamline offerings and reduce promotional activity.”

Erdmann joined Kate Spade as CEO last August, from global president of L’Oreal’s Urban Decay.