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Coach is a brand with a design ethos that is firmly rooted in wearability, so it should come as no surprise that creative director Stuart Vevers zeroed in on three core wardrobe staples for the brand’s Spring Summer ’23 collection. Taking inspiration Coney Island and the piers in New York City, Coach S/S ’23 is the brand’s zhooshed-up take on ‘beach style’. Forget strappy sandals and wicker totes, the Coach girl (and guy) is rocking super-oversized cable knit sweaters, distressed leather jackets, and sheer babydoll dresses. It’s a sixties fever dream with a heady dose of contemporary New York realism.
“Our collections have been a bit more stripped back of late,” Vevers told Vogue in a post-show interview. “We quite liked the honesty of [saying], ‘this is our leather outerwear statement,’ ‘this is our dresses statement.’ It’s unconventional.” It’s certainly refreshing. At a moment where brands are loudly voicing their commitment to sustainability, very few are following through with pared-back, highly-considered collections. Vevers’ 46-look offering focused on refreshing the staples the brand is known and loved for—the boxy, oversized leather coats are destined to be a trans-seasonal hit, while the sweet mini dresses will soon be seen on his coterie of Coach cool girls, Tavi Gevinson, Coco Gordon Moore, and Paloma Elsesser among them.
Other standout pieces includes chunky knitted cardigans with playful coloured embroidery (A.K.A cottagecore done right), tailored leather overalls in a chic shade of oxblood, and varsity-style mini dresses. The latter were inspired by the recent sartorial outings of Lil Nas X, a recently-announced Coach ambassador, who also closed the runway show with a surprise performance.
Accessories, a specialty area for Coach, tapped into fashion’s recent penchant for all things Y2K. The oversized, weatherbeaten leather satchels evoked the wine-stained Balenciaga City bags Ashley Olsen used to tote around New York University during her days as a student there (the studied effortlessness of the Olsen Twins never really goes out of style), while the shoes—high-top sneakers and glittery jelly sandals—were peak Noughties nostalgia. Since his tenure began almost a decade ago, Vevers has displayed a deft ability to read the cultural temperature. This season his intuition that “less is more” proved a palpable hit.
