Coach Believes in the American Dream

According to Coach, it’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood. For the New York brand’s fall/winter 2022 collection, it once again stood firmly in its American heritage, rooting us in a wistful longing for quiet nights at home, away from the city. That’s the stage it set, quite literally. Transforming the Lower East Side’s Basketball City, the audience at its runway show was placed in a residential backlot, complete with characters acting out a performance inspired by the beautiful mundanity of suburbia. Choreographed vignettes highlighted a stroll through Middle America, with one model walking a dog while another unloaded groceries from a car.

“My collections often begin with a feeling, and for Fall, the feeling was love,” stated creative director Stuart Vevers in the collection notes. “To express this, the collection explores tensions between romance and toughness to reinvestigate Coach heritage. I liked the idea of creating a nostalgic world somewhere in America seen through a widescreen lens, mixing the energy of today with the nostalgia for pop culture that has always inspired me.”

Beyond the soundstage, the theme of Americana wasn’t lost on guests. The clothes were ripe with adolescent references, pulling from ‘70s romance and ‘90s grunge (matched by the show’s soundtrack, too). On one spectrum, there were sweet crochet dresses styled with T-bar Mary Janes, and on the other, Vevers presented matching leather sets inspired by the leather scene’s bars and subculture. As always, Coach debuted a new batch of the brand’s signature shearling coats, this season offering up the classic camel along with more modern styles in plaid and houndstooth. Vevers’s allegiance to outerwear functions as a tribute to Bonnie Cashin, Coach’s first head designer, from whom archived coats and the brand’s 1964 Sling bag were reimagined.

As for the pop culture-infused nostalgia hit, the not-so-subtle aloofness of Dazed and Confused-era teenagers crossed directly into Euphoria territory, as touches of Sam Levinson-approved neon modernized the otherwise neutral palette. And while Fez isn’t the type to participate in high fashion, Angus Cloud did sit front row (alongside fellow Coach family members like Megan Thee Stallion, Tommy Dorfman, Rina Sawayama, and more).

See all the looks from Coach’s fall/winter 2022 collection, below.