L’Wren Scott Reportedly Planned To Close Her Fashion Business

L’Wren Scott had been preparing to close her fashion business before she died, according to a friend, after struggling with mounting debts and rising costs that caused her to cancel her attendance at London Fashion Week last month.

The fashion designer was found dead Monday after apparently committing suicide at the age of 49. The longtime girlfriend of Rolling Stones star Mick Jagger designed clothes worn by notable women such as Michelle Obama, Madonna and Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks.

Accounts showed that her London-registered business, LS Fashion Ltd, had piled up debts of $7.6 million by the end of 2012, and that her cash reserves dwindled from over $1 million to around $100,000 between 2013 to 2012, CNN reports.

Her friend, fashion critic Cathy Horyn, wrote in the New York Times that despite Scott’s “grit and endurance,” she had trouble managing her business and had planned to close her business on Wednesday. But Horyn warned against blaming Scott’s business troubles for her suicide.

“Still, as painful as the decision must have been for her, I wouldn’t draw any conclusions from it about her state of mind,” Horyn wrote.

“Her death is inexplicable to me, and it makes me angry, too. Angry because it’s the loss of a vital, intelligent woman, and angry because, this once, I don’t want her to be a mystery to me.”

[NYT]