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Coach‘s creative director Stuart Vevers took a slightly unconventional approach when pulling together the brand’s fall winter 2022 runway presentation. Rather than present an eclectic mix of pieces—presented as a single collection—he separated the looks into key items: the shearling coat, the oversized tee, the ‘60s-style babydoll dress, the leather trench. Each are key pieces in the Coach repertoire and the result was a clear crystallisation of precisely what the collection was, and who it was for.
Who is that exactly? Well, it’s the eclectic cool kids that populated the front row: Euphoria breakout star Angus Cloud, rapper Megan Thee Stallion, actress Tommy Dorfman and supermodel Elsa Hosk. Sartorial rule-breakers and risk takers who still gravitate towards the classics, in other words. The shearling jackets, for example, were blown-up in oversized silhouettes and finished in graphic colourful prints. The trench coats were made of repurposed leather, then spray-painted with graffiti by the Russian-born, Los Angeles-based art duo Mint&Serf.
The runway set was made to look like a classic American suburban landscape—a well-dressed woman walking a dog, or unpacking groceries, a group of Stranger Things-esque kids riding bikes to a swelling synthy ‘80s soundtrack (“It’s always the golden hour and things are happening,” read the show notes.) And that homage to a retro kind of Americana was present throughout the looks, too. Coach has always been a quintessentially American brand and the British-born Vevers has never been afraid of tapping into the sensibility: looks were styled with baseball caps, corduroy trousers, and shrunken leather vests, homages to the ‘70s heyday of the California-cool aesthetic.
But for every moment of leather-inflected machismo there was a soft, romantic day-dress: finished in cream crochet or pastel-hued lace. Flirty dresses were affixed with satin bows or Peter Pan collars (it seems Coach got the memo about the return of ‘twee’)—the exact kind of outfit the romantically-inclined would be wearing to date night following the show, which was staged on Valentine’s Day. Vevers has a soft spot for romanticism and gifted every guest a red rose and a heart-shaped cookie, while the the soundtrack included The Carpenter’s classic love song ‘Superstar’, as covered by Sonic Youth (both Kim Gordon and her model daughter Coco have modelled for the brand). “Seen through the lens of romance, every day can be romantic,” Vevers said in an interview. With one of Coach’s shearling jackets in tow, you’d find it hard to disagree.
