SS22: Coach.
Coach is a rare avis in American fashion – a true heritage brand. For Stuart Vevers, key to embracing that heritage is celebrating the work of the company’s first creative director, the groundbreaking designer Bonnie Cashin, who arrived at Coach in the early Sixties. At the same time, Vevers has made New York City, particularly its youth culture, an ongoing theme of his work. The two came together quizzically in his spring collection.
The show opened with “Coach TV: Public Access,” shown on a giant screen installed on Pier 76 at Hudson River Park. (The highlight: Chaka Khan as a phone psychic.) It closed with skateboarders and drummers co-mingling with the models in a finale of feisty, dissonant mayhem. In between, Vevers presented a lineup that played Cashin-inspired retro against street. The former came in demonstrative outerwear, amply cut in various plaids and checks, and the latter, in casual separates, jeans and Ts, some of which featured logos of iconic New York locales such as the restaurant Serendipity3 and Zabar’s market.
While those juxtaposed elements felt a bit unreconciled, their multiple parts melded into a trove of pragmatic wardrobe-building pieces, many of which were good-looking.
Writer Bridget Foley.
