L'Wren Scott had decided to shut her debt-ridden fashion business and had told aides that she would announce the move this week.
After spending a week on her own at the Mustique holiday home of Sir Mick Jagger, her boyfriend, she returned to New York and confided in friends that her couture brand was no longer financially viable.
LS Fashion Ltd was running at a loss of £3.5 million (NZ$6.8m), and although Sir Mick had given the company financial support, Scott had decided there was no point in it continuing. She died in her apartment on Monday before any announcement had been made.
Cathy Horyn, the outgoing fashion editor of The New York Times and a long-standing friend of Scott, said that "she was planning to close her business, with an announcement due on Wednesday [March 19]''. She added that friends who saw her the night before her death were "deeply concerned'' about her state of mind, but "didn't think she would do something so desperate''.
Horyn said that in recent weeks Scott, 49, had seemed "run down and discouraged'' because of her struggling business.
