COACH F/W 2015 MENSWEAR

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM: COACH designer Stuart Vevers keep on his top to bottom revamp of the American company with this menswear show that got its star in the idea of individuality.

When he was just a lad in Yorkshire, Stuart Vevers decorated his teenage bedroom with a My Own Private Idaho poster. A few years on—via stints at Bottega Veneta, Mulberry, and Loewe—his talent has teleported him to New York to become the creative director of Coach. For the house’s debut men’s ready-to-wear collection, Vevers indulged that teenage cinephile with compelling results. In what was billed as a presentation but was really a show, the shadows of Keanu, River, and all the other young Americans Vevers once watched flickered through the luxe-without-fuss outerwear that starred above a supporting counterpoint of charcoal trousers. Many of the standout pieces were shearling, with some layered over leather homages to the type II Levis jacket worn so serenely, if menacingly, by Martin Sheen in Badlands.

“A lot of the materials we used are very sturdy,” said Vevers: “I like pieces that feel like there is a lot of life to them. And there is something about being in New York City that reinforces that—people there engage in fashion, but it’s got to work too.” This collection certainly did.