Coach Spring 2025 Has Distinctly Optimistic Bent

Emily Mercer and Jean E. Palmieri
·3-min read

Optimism is at the front of many New York designers’ minds this season. Stuart Vevers is no exception, and that’s just what the Coach creative director sought to create — and delivered — with his spring collection.

Over the past several years, Vevers has been delivering wardrobes for the next generation, such as his fall collection’s Brooklyn and Empire handbags, which have already had strong, viral reactions — the former also spotted on Bella Hadid.

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“I’ve never had my DMs so full of people asking me [for them],” Vevers said backstage before the show Monday. He said he has been immersed in exploring “how the next generation is discovering American classics.” And this youth-minded ethos has started to make “the path of differentiation for Coach clearer to me. It’s making us understand that when we stand for something different, people appreciate it.”

In that vein, spring was all about rediscovering and reinvestigating American classics through the lens of these young people. He did so by “recoloring, cutting up, changing proportions and sketching over them,” as seen in the coed chinos, roomy pinstripe suits and navy blazers paired with those iconic “I Heart NY” graphic T-shirts — some (Re)Loved, others knit — with scribbled slogans and sketches. The lineup’s punky, DIY mentality brought a fresh edge to the relaxed and easy lineup in a way that felt real rather than thematic.

It played into the collection’s other big influence of working with more post-consumer materials, which have not only expanded in size but now serves to inform his design process. Those chinos, for example, were put back together with seams left raw while his stellar upcycled brown leather and suede jackets were cropped short because it simply made more sense when working with smaller “end of life” leather pieces.

The outerwear looked especially great atop pastel-hued, retro satin minidresses — cooly taking the “baby” out of babydoll for today’s girl, who, like those on the runway, would style it with the brand’s new beaten-up, embellished, personalized (like the T-shirts) and charm-adorned Soho sneakers and exaggerated Frame bags (first designed in the ‘60s by Bonnie Cashin) in playful dinosaur, heart and star shapes.

Spring also touched on his previous collection’s pajama dressing but this time around, he sliced up those PJs and turned them into boxer shorts and paneled shirts. It was an especially strong message in men’s, he said.

There was more tailoring in the men’s offering than in recent seasons, but the looks were soft and easy — reflecting the trend of the season — with half or unlined blazers created from yarn-dyed cottons that resulted in pieces that were “soft, like a cardigan,” he said.

One might’ve thought Vevers’ show location, set on The High Line’s Spur, might’ve been chosen for its convenient location next door to Coach’s headquarters, but to Vevers, there was actually a bigger meaning that reflected the same grounded approach he’s applied to the youthful fashions.

“We’ve shown in three beautiful historic venues for our last runways and I just wanted the context of this discovering of American classics by the next generation to be in the heart of the city because I liked the realness of the context, the honesty.”

For more New York spring 2025 reviews, click here.

Launch Gallery: Coach Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection

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