Stuart Vevers used everyday denim, leather, khakis, and cotton T-shirting for his spring 2025 Coach collection. Yet even when he was using these raw materials—and, sometimes, they were literally raw, thanks to the clothes’ frayed edges and tattered seams; other looks were delightfully creased and crumpled—they were a reminder that Vevers has the Midas touch right now. I mean, come on, did you see those last-quarter results for Coach?! The brand is on an up-and-up-and-upward trajectory, which is all the more impressive given that we’re in a moment of hand-wringing about stalling sales and tanking interest in fashion. Yet leading with this financial factoid feels a bit off, a tad crass, for the simple fact that the reason his Coach is connecting is because Vevers has put his creative faith in the future: in youth, in sustainability, in the idea that an honesty about authenticity and heritage go hand in hand with a certain joyfulness, playfulness, and—this might be the first time I’ve written this in a review—friendliness.
That’s the approach and here’s how it all played out courtesy of Vevers’s newest offerings. Like other designers these past few days, he’s been looking at classic American archetypes, the things that have loomed large in the national—and global—psyche. He has been breaking them down and reconstructing them, testing their strength and durability. As he put it at a collection preview some days ago: “I’m really very intrigued by how the new generation is discovering those American classics and seeing them through fresh eyes.” So the preppiest of looks opened his show, a navy blazer and khakis with an “I Heart NY” tee. The relative classicism of Vevers’s tailoring was in sharp and cool contrast to the upcycled, patched-together sloucherama beige cotton pants; the look was weathered, worn, and wonderful. (And as with many of the looks here, it turned up on a girl and then a boy, but the mindset at work is definitely fashion first, gender second.)
Likewise, aviator and Perfecto leather got a second life from being reworked into roomy multi-buttoned cardigan jackets or teeny-tiny biker jackets. At that preview, Vevers mentioned that the best way to reuse things is to take them and then chop them up with merry abandon, so that by using the smaller and best parts of whatever you’re upcycling, you let the pieces have a meaningful reinvigoration. Let the imperfection become an age-patinated perfection of sorts, as it were. Also, he noted that the amount of seams that are needed has “become part of our design language, which is interesting; piecing things together has helped us create new silhouettes.” Elsewhere, he rode the wave of the ’60s with zingy satin minidresses—“I love the colors, I love the optimism they bring”— as if uptown debutantes had had one too many acid freak-outs and decided to fuck them up, giving up a life of the Carlyle for the Velvet Underground’s “Exploding Plastic Inevitable” in the process. (I mean: Who wouldn’t?!)
Of course, Vevers wouldn’t be Vevers if he wasn’t also giving sly winks. Yep! Bring on the bags! Bigger-than-big clasp-frame clutch purses in vegetable-dyed leathers, based on a 1969 Bonnie Cashin design, as well as other clutches in the shape of cartoonishly large lips, hearts, and bones. Smaller shoulder purses jangled with teddy bear and heart charms; cassette tape and toy car novelties were atop scuffed-to-hell white sneakers. Many of the accessories had also been scrawled on with pen graffiti the way you did when you were in fifth grade. (Well, maybe you did: I was way too much of a goody-two-shoes.) All of this was a salient reminder that Coach might be a big, international corporate brand, but there’s no cynicism at work here. You can feel it, sense it, and—best of all—you can wear it and carry it.
