New York: Fashion designer Kate Spade was found dead in her New York City apartment in an apparent suicide on Tuesday, the New York Police Department said.

Her body was found by a housekeeper at the Park Avenue apartment and she left a note, the New York Times reported, citing an NYPD official.

She was pronounced dead at the scene at 10.26am (12.26am Wednesday AEST).

Spade and her husband, Andy, started her namesake label, Kate Spade, in New York in 1993.