Jennifer Lopez, SF9's Tae Yang And Nineties Nostalgia At Coach Spring/Summer 2024
Stuart Vevers caps off a decade at the brand with a sexy, stripped back collection
Stuart Vevers is celebrating his 10th year at Coach. It’s quite an accomplishment, in this age of the short-lived creative directorship. As Vevers himself put it during the post-show dinner, when he started a decade ago, the brand didn’t even make clothes. Today, it’s one of the biggest draws at New York Fashion Week, with a spring/summer 2024 show held at the stunning Beaux Arts landmark that is the New York Public Library, and attended by the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Lil Nas X, Youngji, and Tae Yang of SF9.
Reflecting on this milestone got Vevers feeling nostalgic. Specifically, it got him thinking about the Nineties—the period he first came to New York. Vevers wanted the new collection to say something about “the archetypes of New York fashion,” but he didn’t want to do mere reproductions of what came before. Instead, he wanted to recreate the feeling those clothes evoked in him then—the cool sexy minimalism, the grungy attitude.
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To start with, there were black leather slips and dishevelled black suits. The rest of the collection expanded along those lines, barely-there dresses alternating with slouchy tailoring. There were completely sheer negligees, prettily embroidered with flowers but the leather undergarments and the slouchy boots they were worn with gave them a street-ready edge. Those boots were great—they gave perfect It-girl nonchalance to every look they’re paired with. The leather slips also came in mini lengths and punk-princess colours like lilac and fire-engine red. The black patchworked denim iteration felt both understated and cool.
The tailoring was soft and boxy in a Nineties way; most of it crumpled as though its wearer had been out all night. There were his-and-hers clingy, cobwebby knit dresses, which lent a Kurt and Courtney vibe to the proceedings. The tan leather coats and jackets worn with nothing but brightly coloured sneakers were a nice way to lighten up the brand’s leather heritage, and an accessible distillation of what’s been happening in Paris and Milan in recent seasons. The cropped boxy jackets worn with long, low-slung skirts and those slouchy boots were also an effective way of showing leather on leather on leather.
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At its heart, Vevers’ work is about joy, and the collection is peppered with little details meant to inspire delight. There were toy-like brooches and earrings in the form of dinosaurs and insects; heart-shaped bags and glasses; and quilted bags covered in lipstick kisses. The collection also showed how Vevers’ design language has matured. His earliest collections looked like they were clothes for characters in a movie; his latest ones looked like they’re for characters in real life. The clothing is more sober and grounded, but not precious or intimidating, which feels very American. The sense of grit, that worn-in quality that has found its way into Coach (which is also due to the brand working more with upcycled and deadstock materials) is also a nice look for one of America’s oldest leather goods brands. It’ll be interesting to see where Vevers steers it in the next 10 years.