Coach

Photo: Getty
Coach’s creative director Stuart Vevers staged his spring/summer 2023 show for Coach on a pier in Park Avenue Armory in New York. “It’s the idea that a group of friends have left the club at sunrise, and they’re like, ‘Let’s go to Coney Island!’” he said of his showcase, which featured pieces to take the wearer from city to beach.

The show imagined a giant boardwalk
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In the Armory on Park Avenue, Coach had erected a massive pier. As the show began, it lit up warmly like an early sunrise as models meandered around the boardwalk hand-in-hand like couples and in groups of friends. “We had a conversation about what young people in New York do in the summer,” Stuart Vevers explained in a preview. “It’s the idea that a group of friends have left the club at sunrise, and they’re like, ‘Let’s go to Coney Island!’ They jump on the subway and adapt their wardrobe to going to the beach. I did it myself back in the day. But the more ‘city’ version of that is the west side, on the piers. You can almost get a sense of the beach or the seaside.”
It was a city-to-beach collection
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“There’s something interesting about the place where the city meets the beach: Coney Island, Rockaway Beach, or Jones Beach where people usually go for the day. It’s not this full beach experience where you go with hats and bikinis. It’s a bit more random. The idea of that wardrobe inspired my starting point,” Vevers said. “It brought references that we’ve not really played with before. We’re usually in the city or on the prairie. We’ve never been by the sea. It gave us some very obvious reference points for materials and styling: shells and jellies and Aran sweaters; things that are very beachy and summery. But it’s not what you’d typically expect as beachwear.”
The clothes were “love-worn”
Photo: Getty

Vevers’s city-to-beach motif shaped a collection founded in a kind of adaptability and resourcefulness that removed it from beachy clichés and brought it back to Coach’s somewhat grittier territory. Super-relaxed tailored leather outerwear defined the show, styled with shorts so short you could barely see them. Oversized Aran knits played to the same silhouette, patched up and pieced together as they’d existed for a hundred years. “They’re pieces that feel as if they could have had another life: an exploration of burnishing, patina… There’s almost nothing that doesn’t have a treatment or isn’t made of pre-worn materials,” Vevers said, explaining how important it is for him to experiment with sustainable techniques and circularity.
Lil Nas X closed the show
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As the show’s closing look, Lil Nas X hit the boardwalk to mark his new gig as Coach’s global ambassador. Done up in the braids that defined the show’s hair styling, it took a while for the audience to recognize the star. But eventually, you could see iPhones being raised in synchronized movement before Vevers came out to take his bow with the artist. As part of the Coach cast – which, it has to be said, is always on point – you could see why Vevers had chosen Lil Nas X as his new poster boy: a fitting representative of the fluid, progressive youth this brand is aimed at.
Stuart Vevers once met the Queen

As an Englishman abroad, it felt only appropriate to ask Vevers to share his thoughts on the death of Queen Elizabeth II. “I’ve actually met the Queen,” he beamed. “She opened a new wing of the University of Westminster while I was there, and we put on a fashion show for her. I had a piece in the show and I got to shake her hand,” he said. “She’s someone who’s been such a constant in so many of our lives; so stable and respected. Maybe because we’ve grown up with her, whether it’s on the news or watching The Crown, we know so much about the different stages of her life. We feel such a strong connection.”
Originally published in Vogue.co.uk
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While many women are working and lounging from home, they are finding a blossoming comfort in wearing the most feminine of silhouettes.
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Life as we knew it was tossed out the window in 2020. When the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, away went dinner parties, art exhibitions, and extravagant fashion weeks. As lockdowns buckled most of the world down at home, ideas shifted with regards to how we should dress, beautify ourselves, and feel good when confined to home, seeing the same people, day in and day out. Life goes on, as does fashion. Adapting to the circumstances, the desire to dress-up persists – albeit with comfort.
Courtesy of Alessandra Rich
Along with stylish athleisure brands that are now stocked in every woman’s wardrobe, are also day dresses – the new loungewear. The trend took to the runways of SS21 in the form of slim dresses, often with pouf- sleeves and ethereal fabric, from Alessandra Rich, Coach, and Rodarte. They harkened back to the ultra-feminine, gracious glamour of the 1940s. These are accompanied by long, layered tunics at Fendi and Jil Sander, which can be easily worn at home or out in comfort. Middle Eastern designers similarly picked up on the trend, launching a host of dainty dresses for a wide variety of occasions. Flexibility and versatility are key these days.
Courtesy of Rodarte
At Reemami, Reema Al Banna devised several long dresses, some in tunic style and others with a tight bodice reflective of the Forties dress. These are decorated with the designer’s distinct artistic flair, with long, colorful lines and shapes and playful sketches. “While everyone is saying that leisurewear and activewear are taking over, I believe that dresses and skirts that make a woman feel good are still very much here and will never go out of fashion or be overlooked, even during these times,” comments Al Banna. “My collections continue to have easy-to-wear, comfortable dresses as well as fabulous dresses for all occasions. We will most likely use stretchy fabrics, like jersey material.”
Photo: INDIGITAL
Dubai-based Bouguessa’s SS21 collection includes long shirts in a variety of earthy hues, alongside button-down dresses. “They were designed with high comfort in mind; the material is natural fibers for the majority, allowing the clothes to be airy and easy,” says designer Faiza Bouguessa. “We want to focus on classic pieces with a longer life cycle, but at the core of this collection is the freshness of the material that brings this concept of day dresses and day wear as loungewear.” Lama Jouni, a Dubai-based, Lebanese designer, echoes the need for triumph but also glamour. Her latest designs include slim-fit halter dresses that are at once seductive and allow the wearer to move with ease. “As a designer I see the shift in the mentality of women when it comes to shopping; women want to feel comfortable, elegant, yet effortless and that’s what I want to offer with this line.” As Salim Cherfane, designer of Lebanese brand Jeux de Mains, known for its playful and disruptive designs, says, “We all need basics. We all need something to hold us together and make us feel comfortable with everything happening on the outside in this world.”
Courtesy of Reemami
The day dress trend whisks us back to another period of great cultural change: the Roaring Twenties, which followed the devastating influenza pandemic of 1918. Women were also theoretically granted the right to vote in the US in 1920. During this time, at the end of each day, women would hang up their house dresses and aprons and go out to run errands and visit friends. The dresses they donned were comfortable yet fancy with lusher materials. The cut and the fabric used differentiated a woman’s house dress from her day dress. The latter was made largely of casual jersey, wool, linen, knits, crepe, and rayon as well as silk, organdy, taffeta, and velvet. In essence, it helped mark a woman’s newfound political and cultural freedoms.
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Saeedah Haque, a British-Bangladeshi designer known for her streetwear abayas, has similarly devised overlays and dresses that reflect our new era’s need for dressing with comfort and elegance. “Comfort is the greatest luxury and loungewear is the new power dressing,” she posits. “I love to disrupt the formal day dress and it is through challenging things that we can innovate. Comfort is a power unlike any other. I want us to wear that power and take it to the streets.”
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Originally published in the February 2021 issue of Vogue Arabia