Thinking Outside The Bag

Under the helm of British designer Stuart Vevers, Coach, the once-dormant all-American heritage brand, is reinstated with the glory of its heyday.

- Kames Narayanan

In 2013, news broke that British designer Stuart Vevers would take over the helm at Coach, America’s original house of leather, as the brand’s executive creative director. Already on his resume at the time of appointment were tenures at Mulberry and Loewe, both of which boast a reputation for their unparalleled prowess in leather craftsmanship and equally successful ready-to-wear counterparts. At the former, he reinvigorated the Bayswater tote with a leather cage around it and at the latter, redesigned the brand’s iconic Amazona bag.

There was little surprise then, when Vevers was appointed head honcho at Coach. It was a man of that calibre who bore the promise of reinventing a heritage behemoth whose tried ideas had gone sterilein the landscape of contemporary luxury.

“Coming on board Coach, I felt it was really important to think about how the next generation considers luxury today,” Vevers said. “One of the things I was drawn to in joining Coach was that I felt it had a kind of fresh technique on what luxury means. It was a warmer, friendlier take on luxury. I felt like the rules of luxury were breaking down. Today, a cool sneaker, backpack and sweatshirt can all be luxury items and Coach felt like a good place to explore that.”

In the brand’s longstanding history of more than seven decades, its offerings had, until Vevers’s appointment, stayed within the perimeter of leather goods and accessories. When Coach was first conceived out of a factory loft in Soho, Manhattan, in the 1940s, it specialised in handmade wallets and billfolds. Later, in the early 1960s, it diversified into leather handbags. Designer Bonnie Cashin’s carryalls, painted in vibrant hues, cemented Coach’s reputation as America’s quintessential house of leather.