"The Kate Spade brand was like a ray of sunshine — an antithesis to pessimism, self-conscious ennui..."

"... and even the sarcastic humor of her brother-in-law David Spade during his “Saturday Night Live” heyday. The company’s calling card was unabashed optimism."

Robin Givhan writes (in WaPo) about how Kate Spade's designs (handbags, etc.) were so nice at "a time when much of the highbrow fashion industry was fixated on minimalism and the washed-out, dour aesthetic known as heroin chic."

And then Kate Spade killed herself. Was the fashion always a facade, some desperate grasping to climb out of horrible darkness? Were the women who wore "heroin chic" happier than those who went for Kate Spade's clear colors and happy shapes?

It's interesting to think of these questions after blogging about Miss America's effort to get away from "outward appearance." What are other people really like on the inside? Well, the inside is private. We get to choose how much access to give to our inner selves, and to show what's on the inside, we need to let it out — by actions and gestures and by words but also by how we look. We've got to wear something, and we can choose to reveal what we are inside through what we wear, but we don't have to tell the straightforward truth.

You can wear yellow-and-white polka dots when you are gloomy and nothing but black when you're doing just fine.

This made me think of the Teri Garr character in "Afterhours":