Stuart Vevers reminisces upon 10 years of American spirit for Coach’s SS24 spectacle at the New York Public Library.

In fashion’s current age of the design-studio revolving door, Stuart Vevers is both throwback and rare success story. A decade into his tenure at Coach’s creative helm, he continues to create excitement while ensuring brand consistency.

On Thursday night, Vevers marked his ten-year anniversary at Coach with a highly personal collection that took the saccharine out of nostalgia and replaced it with a forward stride that felt at once new and accessible. “To paraphrase one of my heroes, Keith Haring, [fashion] should be for everyone,” he said post-show.

Vevers’ showed in one of the city’s great cultural bastions, the Main Branch of the New York Public Library, a grand Beaux Arts building famously guarded by two marble lions, Patience and Fortitude. His starting point was New York archetypes from the Nineties, when he first arrived in the city. Yet there was nothing literal or overtly retro to the collection, in part because he took a nontraditional approach to remembering when. He started with just that – his own recollections, and never looked at actual old pieces. Even for handbags, he resisted the archival urge. “My memories were more of a blueprint for the design of these archetypes rather than any literal references…” he wrote in his program notes. “I wanted to keep the design references abstract and personal while evolving the mood.”

Two primary memories were the girls at Pyramid Club, dancing away in little slipdresses, and “’women who were done with power dressing” and wanted a new take on office wear – back when such distinctions existed. The first came with toughened-up reinvention – the slips cut in leather and worn atop biker boots. And Vevers took the “innerwear-as-outerwear” (as it used to be called) motif further, with sheer tulle, lace and open-knit dresses over (slightly) bad-girl leather undies. The leather pieces were often crafted from repurposed materials – part of Coach’s broad stroke sustainability efforts. This didn’t stop two animal activists from infiltrating the runway with signage and sexy outfits, part of a major cultural campaign that all leather- centric companies must cope with on an ongoing basis. (An aside on that movement: Unlike in the Nineties, many of its practitioners now take a considered, glam approach to protest. With the goal of going viral, why not look great?)

Back to Vevers’ clothes, those power-dressing alternatives looked terrific in straight, slightly oversized tailoring that crossed over to the menswear. It made you want to put on a suit again – or for the first time.

After the show, guests headed to dinner in the Edna Barnes Salomon Room, where exquisite floral arrangements and 4,000 deftly stacked books installed by set designer Stefan Beckman heightened the mood of intimacy. In his charming delivery, Vevers told his guests that he was honored to show in so essential a landmark, and that he loves New York not only for the Bright Lights, Big City of it all, but because, “it’s where I created my family.” To wit, his husband and children attended, as did his father. It was the elder Vevers’ very first fashion show.

Vevers also addressed the relevancy of the fashion-show construct. It’s only via a show, he said, “that Coach comes to life fully for our clients to see before it walks out through these doors, past the lions and into the real wardrobes of America and the world beyond.”