Coach Creative Director Stuart Vevers on NYFW Prep, the Gen Z Coach Craze, and Designing Cult-Favorite Bags

The Who What Wear Podcast

In this episode of The Who What Wear Podcast, host Hillary Kerr sits down with Stuart Vevers, the creative director of Coach, to discuss his

Key takeaways

• Vevers emphasizes self-expression and experimentation as key drivers in today's fashion landscape, noting a shift toward 'strange' and surprising designs.
• The Rogue bag is highlighted as an underrated yet emotionally resonant piece that reconnected customers with Coach's legacy.

Main topics

• Stuart Vevers' career journey from Calvin Klein to Coach
• The evolution of Coach under Vevers' creative direction

Notable quotes

"I feel like I'm seeing more experimentation. The word strange comes up for me more often."

Conclusion

Stuart Vevers reflects on his transformative journey in fashion, emphasizing that innovation

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:10) Welcome to the Who What Wear podcast. I'm your host, Hilary Kerr, and today on the show, I'm speaking with the creative director of Coach, Stuart Weavers. Stuart has had such a prolific career, starting at Calvin Klein in the 90s and later refining his expertise at brands such as Bottega Veneta, Mulberry, and Loewe. Stuart joined me to record this just one week ahead of his New York Fashion Week show to discuss all things Coach, from introducing Ready to Wear in 2014 to reinterpreting the brand for the Gen Z consumer in recent years. And of course, I asked him about his inspiration for the upcoming Spring Summer 27 collection. It's all coming up on Who, What, Where. Speaker 2 (1:03) Welcome to the podcast. I have been following your career for a very, very long time. And I just think what you do is phenomenal. And I know that our Who What Wear audience is going to be delighted to hear from you. Can you tell us a little bit about how you first got interested in fashion and thought maybe that was the industry for you? I Speaker 1 (1:25) grew up in the north of England, a working class family. It felt, in retrospect, quite far from the world of fashion. I definitely got into fashion through going out, through clubbing. I'm tall and I was tall for my age at like 15, so I could get into nightclubs quite young. The excitement of dressing up led to me researching outfits. I used to make things. My grandmother was involved in amateur dramatics at her local theater and I would go to her house and we'd make outfits or bits of outfits together. And then I started to research designers. I discovered fashion as something to do rather than something to buy with a lot of help from my grandmother. Speaker 2 (2:15) That's so lovely that you had an early champion in your grandmother. I think that's so important. Talk to me a little bit about moving into the industry after college. I read that your first job was at Calvin Klein and not just any era of the brand, but late 90s Calvin Klein. What was that experience like? In Speaker 1 (2:37) many ways, it was just mind blowing. I still didn't really know a lot about the industry, but I very quickly realized it was a competitive world. I knew I would have to work hard and stand out and, you know, all of those things. I was actually interviewed for Calvin in London, so they were recruiting in the UK. I wasn't actually on the interview list, but a friend was going and she divulged the location and I actually just knocked on the door of the interviewer. She was more interested in me because of that. I mean, I don't know for sure, but it seemed like she kind of was... interested in the fact that I pushed my way in. I studied women's wear at college and she was interviewing for women's wear. She didn't think I was right for her team. So she actually put me forward for a job in accessories. And that's actually how I got into accessories. I just saw it as like, oh, maybe this is just a foot in the door. The reason I kind of barged into this interview was because I was really interested in New York in that moment. So that was really my... my goal, I was looking to get to New York. She asked me to do a project. I did a project. I did another project. And I actually, in the end, was offered a role before I graduated. I never went to my graduation ceremony because I was already in New York, which kind of felt, yeah, it felt good. You know, I'd never been to New York. I think I arrived on a Saturday or Sunday before starting work on the Monday and I'd never been. So it was... It was really wild and exciting. And, you know, and I was so young, I was like 21, 22. So what Speaker 2 (4:17) a time and what a place. What do you think your biggest takeaway was in terms of what you learned about whether it's brand or design or corporate structure from your time at Calvin Klein? One Speaker 1 (4:33) of the biggest takeaways I had was was realizing that actually, even though I'd studied women's work, I was. happy to explore other things that was important. Personally, it was a big learning for me. That design was design and this was something I was interested and intrigued in. Honestly, I saw opportunity. I saw opportunity there. But then it did mean my next move started to become quite clear because a lot of people who were, you know, mentoring me, teaching me, when I asked advice, a lot of people started to say, You need to go to Italy. You need to spend time in Italy. You need to get to know how things are made. You need to understand how factories work, how the craftspeople create things. And in my role, my junior role there, I wasn't traveling. I wasn't going. After a couple of years, I decided I would start to look for something in Italy and just... see if I could move there and get that experience that everybody was recommending. From Speaker 2 (5:35) there, you've held a number of interesting positions at very interesting brands from Bottega to Givenchy to Vuitton, where you worked with Marc Jacobs. Talk to me a little bit about that period of your career. I Speaker 1 (5:48) think I was so hungry at that time. I was like a sponge. I was just looking for new experiences and people I could learn from. And that's why I moved quite quickly from New York to Milan to Paris. I was going where the opportunity was and learning. Just that time in factories, which, you know, I still do that today. I still love spending time in factories with the craftspeople. Working for Mark was really important because he taught me so much. The attention to detail he gave, the mix of high and low. the humor, the surprise, the culture. Working for that brand, there was so much happening. It was just, it was super exciting. And, you know, Mark was very generous with his time and he taught me so much. You know, I remember sitting with him in design meetings at 11 o'clock at night, two in the morning, and Mark was choosing the edge paint and the color and like the stitch color. It was like, it was a real lesson in like... commitment, you know, commitment to the craft. Yeah, I learned so much from him. Speaker 2 (6:54) Then you joined Mulberry as their creative director in 2005. And in 2007, were appointed creative director of Loewe. Talk to me a little bit about taking that step into creative direction and how that changed sort of your day to day. It Speaker 1 (7:11) was a huge shift for me. But I knew that when I was working for Mark, towards the end of that time, I started to realize, like, I want to do what Mark's doing. Like, I want the responsibility to make those choices. I want to create an entire world. So it was then that I was able to then go back into the skills I'd learned at university and start to think about women's wear, ready to wear. But, you know, it's much bigger than that. You're starting to think about casting and campaigns. And so I knew it would be a really big shift. But, you know, I was going from the huge... company that was Louboutin to a much smaller brand that was Mulberry. And in fact, a lot of people at the time kind of thought I was crazy, but I wanted to see if I could do it. I wanted to see if I had what it takes to be a creative director and, you know, be able to zoom all the way out and zoom all the way in. And I think that's what often being a creative director can be. It's what I love about being a creative director. But yeah, it was a huge shift, a huge learning. I remember being very nervous, but really feeling like it was important to do it because, yeah, like I said, a lot of people were a little confused as to why I'd made that jump. Speaker 2 (8:26) Well, I think it makes perfect sense. And I also want to talk about your move to coach. Yeah. Which I remember when we heard the news, the entire Who What Wear team, like... gasped with joy. We were all so excited. And it's been really interesting to watch since 2013, when you took on the role, how you have both honored this brand that has been so important to so many people for so long and revitalized it as well. Talk to me about what your vision was for the brand when you first started. I Speaker 1 (9:05) have to admit, it wasn't an easy decision. I was very happy. in the role that I was in, I was really intrigued. It was quite different to what I'd done before. It was a different area of the market, a different price point. But I already had a lot of affection for the brand from... I think every brand I'd ever worked for had multiple coach bags in their inspiration archive. It's such an important reference. I did a project as part of my interview process. That was when it clicked. I did the project and I loved doing the project and I loved the project. I didn't know whether other people would love it, but something really worked. And that's when I went from being almost just more curious to like, oh, wow, I really, I actually