Coach 1941. Fall 2019 RTW – New York Fashion Week

 

(Images from Vogue.com and wwd.com and the public domain. All rights. Used in promotion of the designer.)

Coach, established in 1941 in Manhattan, New York as a small leather goods company.  From humble beginnings of industrial ambition, the company rose through the 1950s and 60's to become a house hold brand. Despite its exclusivity, Coach began incorporating the 'Western' cowboy styles of leather wear, namely handbags, that in turn began to morph into a complete branding concept. The restructuring and buyouts continued onward into the 1970s and 80's, as the brand maintained a dominance in the North American leather goods market. With the original owners (Cahn's) selling it out to the multinational Sara Lee, which sets in place diversifying the company to become focused on retail.  Thus 'Coach 1941' is born as a Ready-to-Wear collection, designed in tandem to compliment the handbag business model. 

Trends in fashion are proportional to the imagination of the industry's creative directors, they either set them or chase markets. In relation to Coach 1941 it is the British designer Stuart Vevers, who, with a linage of high-end inside positions with various other multinational branded fashion houses, has taken over the reigns as the lead designer for Coach 1941. With the Fashion shows of 2017, 2018 and now 2019 swinging back to the late 1970s and early 1980s as the current base trend. The 1990s were an infusion of 80's and 70's, sportswear, hiphop, grudge and post hippie styles represented a mismatched sentiment throughout that era.  So, any designer trying to mimic inclusively 1990s looks may struggle keeping up with the thrift stores and particularly fast fashion - who can churn out nostalgia at a rapid rate.  Focusing specifically on the prior influential era's may hold a better resonance than shifting into the adhoc styles that occurred over twenty years ago.  Why not go back a further sixty plus years to the mid 1960s as an attempt at incorporating and reworking the later looks, which as a history lesson will entail was the tail end of the hippie counter culture. 

The famous quilt maker Kaffe Fassett, was responsible as one of the guiding influences for Vevers's Coach 2019 RTW collection. Fasset's obsession with color, more so the intricacy of how color can exude in a design, is his mainstay. Which is grounded in such a rich history of his patten and tapestry work. A truly amazing artist, to which Vevers has shown respect for Fasset's designs, drawing out the 1960s flower power styles and infusing if with pre and post 1990s darkened grudge/street wear looks. And it works extremely well. The 1980s leading into the 1990s was dark, one can be philosophical about this, but the decline of economic significance into the 21st Century with the onset of fast tracked globalization, has cast even further dark clouds over the horizon. A bloated culture running on empty will inevitably start to look at bygone era's that held, what may seen like a significance. But, they may only find ghosts. However designers reflect the current times that we live in and through its aesthetics it becomes a reference point. 

Layered coats and jackets, neatly styled and fitted. Very impressive arrays, it shows concentration in piecing the collection together. So it flows well, plaid (prior season trend/s), drapped wool tops, rugged shearer jackets, psychedelic inspired patterned silk inlays. A tough collection, with a serious tone. Which, even though its appeal would be aimed a younger buyers. There is a maturity within its the configurations. Owed to Stuart Vevers knowledge and skills.