The New Coach

With the immense array of designers featuring their latest collections at New York Fashion Week, along with all of the celebrities and fashion bloggers gathering in one section of the city, it can be easy to forget about a few brands that we’ve followed so closely in the past. Brands like Coach, who since the worst of the recession, have not been able to recover their sales. The past few years, Coach has been losing their market to other brands like Michael Kors and Tory Burch, and their stock has plummeted 40% since 2009.

A CNBC report stated that “years of underinvestment and too much emphasis on its outlet stores have undermined Coach’s brand equity.” The report goes further, saying that in a  Google search analysis, Coach is not being searched for online in trendsetting spots like NYC, but more so in late adopter states. With the huge hit that Coach took on their handbags during the recession, the company turned their focus on clothes and footwear to increase their overall sales. But a Goldman Sachs report on the company said “these growth initiatives are unlikely to do anything to fix Coach's problems in its core handbag business, and in a worst case may do harm by distracting the organization and confusing the customer."

As a result, Coach has come under new management with newly appointed CEO Victor Luis and Creative Director Stuart Vevers. Coach debuted their newest line last Thursday in an attempt to turn around the brand and capture a whole different portion of the market. While Coach in the past has been known for its more colorful, cleaner outfits and products with clear logos that tell you ‘This bag is Coach.’, The new Coach display featured outfits almost entirely in black, mixing materials like leather and wool in their outfits. And their bags now have decorative details, like fringe and studs. Fashionista.com reported that it “was nearly impossible to identify the collection as Coach. It was more Nicholas K meets DKNY meets Madewell.”