American fashion designer Kate Spade has died at age 55. New York police are investigating her death as a suicide. Tributes have poured in from the fashion world for the designer, famed for her colorful and preppy bags.

The 55-year-old was found "unresponsive" by her housekeeper on Tuesday morning. Her husband and business partner Andy Spade was also in the Park Avenue apartment at the time. It's not clear how long she had been dead and an autopsy will be carried out.

The couple's 13-year-old daughter was at school and officials said a note was found at the scene telling her it was not her fault.

Uninspired by purses available in the 1990s and keen to fill a gap in the market... Kate had created her line of sleek, quirky and brightly colored handbags that shook up the fashion landscape.

KATE SPADE DESIGNER "I was looking for something very simply designed and not kind of, and I don't mean basic design, something very clean but also it had to have a personality, and I think what was happening at the time either they were too designed, overly complicated, or they were so basic and functional that there wasn't really any 'Oh, I just have to have it' spirit to them. So I thought that you could do both. I thought there was a way to combine something that was very functional and simply designed, but also you enjoyed wearing it, you looked forward to it and you really wanted to have it, so."

Her company opened its first store in New York in 1996 and now has over 300 branches worldwide.

ERIC WILSON FASHION DIRECTOR, INSTYLE MAGAZINE "My experience with Kate was that she was just such a committed business person and she and her husband Andy came from non-traditional backgrounds. They didn't study fashion per se; they were more having marketing history. Kate had the editorial perspective having worked as an accessories editor at Mademoiselle magazine and they created this business through hard work and dedication, you know, it's a brand that the motto is, life in color, so it was about happiness and excitement."

Wilson also added that her legacy will continue to influence the industry.

ERIC WILSON FASHION DIRECTOR, INSTYLE MAGAZINE "She created a strong, powerful sharp brand that will have a long life after her. I think that any time that you hear customers saying, 'I remember when I got my first Kate Spade bag' you know that something has meaning to it beyond design. It has powerful emotional associations, and that is one of the hardest things for a designer to achieve. So to have done that as quickly as she did, it was just a couple of years it was a massive brand is really just phenomenal."

Investigators are still in the early stages of their inquiry, but said evidence including the state of the apartment and the presence of the note pointed to "a tragic suicide.'' SL, CGTN.