Today’s Coach 1941 show, held at the Hudson Pier on the West Side Highway, felt like an episode of the popular TV show Stranger Things. Perhaps it was the fact that the show’s stars, Winona Ryder and 12-year-old Millie Bobby Brown, sat front row, or the fact that the set included stacks of rusting life-sized cars in the center of the runway as whimsical cloud projections lit up the walls. Either way, this show was intended for the oddball dreamer.
Stuart Vevers intended to call to mind both the eclectic craft of Santa Fe and New York City style.
Along those lines, the clothes honored all things counter culture, which a quick Google search will tell you is “a way of life and set of attitudes opposed to or at variance with the prevailing social norm.” Mashing up prairie dresses, T-shirts, leather biker jackets, customized denim jeans, ruffled tops, varsity jackets, fringed dresses, floral bow tops, pearl-nailhead chain chokers, and grommeted belts created a deliberately confusing mix of elements that, according to the show notes, designer Stuart Vevers intended to call to mind both “the eclectic craft of Santa Fe” and “New York City style”.
Ironically, in creating a collection aimed at fashion rebels, this mix put Coach squarely in the center of major seasonal trends, with pieces like 90s-inspired pleated slip dresses, oversized denim jackets, and charm chokers that the majority of the people in the audience were already rocking themselves. The idea of a collection aimed to be counter culture dominated by mainstream staples was all very twisted and Twilight Zone, but perhaps the entire point was to blur the lines between mainstream and rebellious. It seems like, just as with the best episodes of a Netflix series, we’re meant to be left questioning.
