Creative director Stuart Vevers appeals to gen z audience with ‘down-to-earth pieces’ for New York fashion week
New York fashion week is proving a particularly perplexing time for brands as they continue to grapple with a global slowdown, leading many to question what luxury even means today.
For some consumers, it is always going to be about a gleaming five-figure handbag. For others, it is a limited-edition Labubu. While a certain cohort considers a plain cashmere jumper to be the peak of high status, logomania endures for others. Vintage shopping is now used to denote quality but equally buying nothing has become a powerful signifier.
However, ahead of the Coach show on Monday afternoon, the brand’s creative director, Stuart Vevers, said the word luxury was “overused”. The Yorkshire-born designer, who has worked with the US house since 2013, explained that he was no longer “interested in extreme polish or perfection that has long been associated with luxury”.
Instead, Vevers’ catwalk collection aimed to capture what is seen as desirable in the eyes of today’s youth. This translated into low-slung jeans so baggy they could be heard scraping along the catwalk with seams grubby and scuffed. Shrunken knits appeared to be moth-eaten. Some models wore workwear-inspired boots with lug soles and scratched leather. There were also actual workwear pieces, including repurposed trousers with paint splatters still visible. Meanwhile, motorcycle jackets appeared worn-in because they were – fashioned from upcycled leather, part of a wider sustainability initiative the brand launched in 2023.
