“Metropolitan” and “American Beauty.” Two of Stuart Vevers’ favorite movies which “bracketed the Nineties,” the Coach creative director pointed out during a walk-through, and formed the starting point of his resort collection.
Vevers drew subtly from the inspiration, without making specific references to the films. In fact, while the silhouettes had something of a cool Nineties swagger, the earthy palette — browns, beiges, reds, russets — imbued a bit of a Seventies vibe. Earthy yet urban, which was the point.
From the films, Vevers extracted “a kind of darkness” with which he determined to move on from the aura of Western romance and its reliance of charming florals that have permeated his recent collections. “I’ve been looking for a new print language,” he said.
Yet there was nothing genuinely somber here, give or take a few “cultish” Ts. Rather, Vevers created a casual urban vibe with a dash of toughness that pushes his aesthetic forward. Along the way, he incorporated “a reimagined version of the Coach heritage.” He took the label’s earliest element of deliberate branding, the horse-and-carriage logo, and developed it in prints and sweater knits that he carried throughout the collection. He played that against cool citified patterns — checks, dots and chevrons — in an array of appealing, wardrobe-building separates.
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The theme carried through into the men’s wear as well, although the overall feel was “more sporty” than the women’s, Vevers said, “but had a lot of the same references.”
The designer used the same horse-and-carriage print on everything from a playful tracksuit with a fleece pocket to T-shirts where a dark-colored dinosaur was superimposed on top to provide a sense of toughness to the men’s offering. Ditto for the skull snowman and dinosaur illustrations emblazoned on Ts.
Standout pieces included a nylon bomber with colorful leather stripes, a Seventies-inspired cropped leather jacket and fleece bomber pants with articulated knees.
While the men’s offering was sporty, Vevers also offered up his distinct take on the tuxedo — a reimagined heritage silhouette that is what he imagined Coach would have looked like if it had designed clothes in the Seventies. But while the look was definitely formal, he dressed it down by pairing it with retro sneakers.