Presiding over the entrance to Coach’s new Regent Street flagship store is a Tyrannosaurus Rex to rival those found in the Natural History Museum. Unlike her Kensington cousins, Rexy (part of the brand’s new menagerie of mascots) is fashioned from treated wood, and has her own leather mini-me’s dotted throughout the store.
This ceiling-grazing dinosaur is the first in a series of Insta-baiting photo opps guaranteed to have visitors reaching for their smartphones; another is the zig-zagging feature wall uniting the upper and lower levels of the 504 square metre space. ‘It was inspired by the conveyer belts in New York dry cleaners,’ says creative director Stuart Vevers, the man at the centre of Coach’s transformation into a major fashion force. ‘You can spot your favourite bag and then the conveyer moves to show it.’ A nod to the label’s New York roots, it’s also crying out to become the subject of a Boomerang or an Instagram Story; neatly capturing how Coach House balances a 75-year heritage with Vevers’ new vision for the brand, which he describes as having ‘a twisted nostalgia.’
As it would be for a new collection, the potential social clout of the new store was an important design consideration for Vevers and his collaborator, architect William Sofield. ‘I wanted those Instagram moments to stand out,’ he explains. ‘How fashion looks on that little screen is vital, and I’ve always wanted my work at Coach to have that immediacy. I’m definitely not a designer who stares at a painting in a gallery for hours. I love pop culture; I like scrolling through a hundred images on Instagram in ten minutes’ - a habit that’s probably shared by the new ‘Coach girl,’ described by the designer as ‘a hopeless romantic, someone who takes American style and subverts it with counter culture references.’
To keep Coach’s ‘free spirited’ muses on their toes, self-expression and individuality play an important role in Vevers’ vision for the brand. It’s only natural, then, that the Regent Street store should allow space to play with customisation. ‘The Coach guy and girl, they’re part of a gang but they’re able to express their personality,’ he explains. ‘We found loads of ways to do that in the store: you can take, say, the Rogue bag and choose from hundreds of thousands of combinations, from the leather and the colours to the hardwear finishes.’ The monogram, too, has been updated for the emoji generation – instead of opting for their initials, shoppers can choose from over 100 different symbols. There’s lips, lightning bolts, sharks and, of course, Rexy the dinosaur.
A real-life ‘Coach girl’ is of course 19-year-old actress Chloé Grace Moretz, a frequent campaign star, who Vevers believes ‘embodies that idea of a free spirited character, an individual.’ Someone else who has also caught the designer’s attention is Millie Bobbie Brown, the breakout star of this summer’s sleeper hit, Stranger Things. ‘I was a big fan of the Netflix show and I’ve always been a big fan of Winona, so having [Millie and Winona] both at our show was amazing. I’ve met Millie since then and she’s just a really smart young woman, with so much opportunity ahead of her.’ Time to start dreaming of a Coach campaign helmed by Winona and Millie? Stranger things have happened…
Coach House is open now at 206 Regent Street, London #coachlondon