There was a certain romance to Coach’s SS26 collection
The New York show featured books as charms, lived-in workwear and an old classic by Sir Elton John.
Style
Words: Matthew Whitehouse
A crisp New York morning. That was the starting point for creative director Stuart Vevers as he set out to present this, Coach’s SS26 collection, yesterday in the city.
“I think those mornings are very special to this place,” he says. “I liked the idea of something that was looking forward, like a new day. A New York morning felt like a good starting point.”
Not that he’s a morning person. “Not really, no,” he laughs, backstage. “It’s a fantasy, isn’t it? That street is not a real New York street,” he says, gesturing to the sepia canvas façade that hung around the vast showspace overlooking the East River.
More than accuracy, what Vevers hoped to transmit this season was a “certain romance”. So much so, there was a kind of frayed majesty to the clothes. It was clean and polished but worn and bleached, like the well-thumbed books that hung like charms from some of the models.
“Half of the books on my bedside table are from stoops,” Vevers says. “There’s that culture in New York of putting stuff out. My kids love rifling through boxes so that’s where that found object idea came from.”
It’s a good metaphor for how Vevers approaches his work at Coach, too: riffling through the history of American, and more specifically New York, style; riffling through the Coach archive, the brand’s Kisslock hardware featuring prominently.
“I see people walking around with Coach bags in New York that just so happen to be 50 or 60 years old and that happen to be more beautiful. So it’s kind of playing with that. Reusing older materials or giving that effect,” he adds of the show’s use of upcycling (those workwear pants have really seen work).
It was soundtracked by a slowly building version of Elton John’s 1973 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – a perfectly well-worn track, if ever we’ve heard one. Here it was repurposed and given new meaning. Upcycled, if you will.
“I think most people know or have a relationship with that song,” says Vevers. “I wanted something that hopefully made you feel something.”
