BRIGHT FLASH
Having established his signatures at Coach, Stuart Vevers has done an about-face, unveiling a whole new direction inspired by the energy of a fresh decade. By Alice Birrell.
Having established his signatures at Coach, Stuart Vevers has done an about-face, unveiling a whole new direction inspired by a fresh decade.
AFTER A CERTAIN time, show-goers and followers come to lean on a designer for certain things: a spruced-up version of the rebel’s essential – a leather jacket, the urban wanderer’s wispy prairie dress, chunky shearling. These were the preserve of Coach’s creative director Stuart Vevers. That was until the music flicked on at the label’s show on a warm and breezy Manhattan day – breezier thanks to the raised location on the High Line – and all was blown away. In its place, unmistakably 80s ruched midi-dresses, muscle tanks and T-shirts printed with the faces of Rob Lowe, Barbra Streisand and Michael J. Fox (a collaboration with the estate of late pop artist Richard Bernstein), bomber jackets and sneakers in Marty McFly primaries.
“I’m really glad people sensed that there was a change,” the 46-year-old British-born Vevers cheerfully explains, needlessly relieved, after the show. He is in a glass box of a showroom bursting with clothing racks and accessories, overlooking Hudson Yards. “When I’d started the collection, I was thinking: ‘I know that by the time I present this I’ll have had my sixth anniversary at Coach.’ That felt like a milestone that I wanted to celebrate, but in a way also challenge myself to look at some new ideas, because the world around us is changing so quickly.”
As we dive into a new decade, those who embrace breakneck change and can move on quickly are flourishing. Fashion in particular has buzzed about the idea that we have tipped into a brave new era in the 2020s, and everyone is considering, like Vevers, what exactly this might mean. “The things I felt passionate about when I joined over six years ago have evolved. I always think a new decade creates that sense of change,” the designer continues. “I want this to feel upbeat. I want to have an optimism going into the next decade.”
Slipping into one of his Crayola-bright leather trenches would certainly make most feel perkier. The swathes of leather in lipstick red and amaranth underscored the optimistic mood and were markedly different from the traditional tans and chocolate browns on Coach’s bags and outerwear that accompanied his nostalgic, sometimes romantic and often darkly tinged previous collections.
What hasn’t changed is how elements are drawn from American mythology: before it has been the vast and wistful prairies, the photographs of Joel Sternfeld, punks, Disney, road trips, David Lynch, dreamers. For these, Vevers worked to capture a freewheeling spontaneity through finishes, taking great pains perfecting suede washes to give a convincingly worn-in effect to a jacket, or scuffing hardware and embellishment to look like they’d taken a few knocks from a bar stool. Now, for spring/summer ’20, a refined leather trench was decidedly pared back, a first for Coach, although it still had the hallmarks of Vevers’s characteristically youthful approach with “lots of snaps and zips that gave quite a punk feeling to a more traditional garment”.
It all feels like a riposte to the untouchable perfection that governed the fashion houses in which he worked after graduating from the University of Westminster, first at Calvin Klein in the late 90s, then Bottega Veneta, Givenchy and Louis Vuitton. After spending two years as creative director for Mulberry, he went on to Spanish luxury house Loewe. “A lot of my training was the idea of perfection,” he says. “I started to tire of that, because I think sometimes if things are too perfect you can lose desire. Something that is too perfect can lose its attitude.”
“The things I felt passionate about when I joined over six years ago have evolved. I always think a new decade creates that sense of change”
Before Vevers came along in 2013, there was no ready-to-wear at Coach. Founded to produce leather goods, the small family outfit had an upgrade in 1962 when young designer Bonnie Cashin worked the practical needs of modern women into bags. Fast-forward to 2020 and New York Fashion Week’s strength and direction is being brought into question, but Vevers has made sure Coach, as an American house with history, is a constant.
Young when compared to its European counterparts, the 1941-founded brand’s focus on accessible luxury seemed a perfect fit for Vevers. His evolved idea of luxury was looser, more grounded and also mirrored Cashin’s pragmatism. “Definitely when I joined Coach [I liked] the idea of bringing ease into pieces, of materials having a vintage patina; it was about knocking that perfection out,” he says. “I often say the feeling I want when someone puts on a Coach leather jacket is just to feel a bit cooler the moment they put it on. That doesn’t come through perfection.”
He set about capturing a quintessentially American, and in particular a New York, feeling with a wide-eyed but well-informed enthusiasm. “I felt like I’d seen quite a lot of America before I joined, but I’ve always wanted to keep that outsider’s view. Like the films that I watched growing up, it’s what drove my first fascinations with America. That Hollywood glow is something I always aspire to creating,” he says. He is not afraid to go right for the mainstream touchpoints because of the fact he didn’t grow up there. “For me they can feel quite exotic, whether it’s the varsity jacket or a runway set of an American gas station.”
Instead Vevers grew up in the north of England, removed from fashion, but going out and making his own outfits when he was young. “I was tall, so I could get into nightclubs from quite a young age,” he says laughing. His grandmother was his unlikely accomplice, on one occasion helping him piece together some PVC jeans. “We were running out of time, because I was going out, so we didn’t even bother to make pockets, which must’ve looked quite unusual,” he says. “That’s when I would start to research in magazines, pull things out and started to get an inkling that there was a creative fashion world out there.”
That youthful élan never left him. “I have a personal obsession with counter-culture and youth culture, because I always think the next generation is redefining what the world is,” he says. “I truly believe major changes are going to happen in our world, because the next generation is demanding that change happens. I think that power is fascinating.”
Colliding with this is the turn of a decade. Vevers is careful to point out that spring/summer ’20 wasn’t about the 80s in its entirety but its germination. “The soundtrack was from the Human League album which was from 1981. It was this idea of the cusp of a decade,” he says. “I think there was a certain sense of change. I was imagining it as the new New Wave.”
Pressing him to tell what the decade holds might be a stretch, however. The designer admits that above all else he follows his instincts and points out: “I’m not a big planner. I don’t think far ahead.” But what we have is his infectious excitement about possibilities and embracing uncertainty with optimism, be that in the form of a daffodil-yellow skirt or sky-blue cross-body bag. “What I love most about fashion is that I don’t know what it’s going to be tomorrow. On Monday I get on a plane to Tokyo to start imagining what the next season will be about. I just love that I have no idea what that is. It’s something that still really fascinates me about fashion: it’s always about change with a certain sense of urgency. I love change.”
“I have a personal obsession with counterculture and youth culture because I think the next generation is redefining what the world is”