Fashion house Coach (New York) has launched an eco-friendly, “circular craft” sub-brand. Dubbed Coachtopia, the company said its new endeavor reimagines the product lifecycle from end to beginning — reducing the creation of new materials by crafting with waste and designing products that can be reimagined, remade and recycled to live multiple lives.
“Circularity is about reimagining not just the product lifecycle, but the relationship between brand, planet and consumer. That’s why we’ve created Coachtopia as both a discovery lab to pioneer circularity in fashion and a collaborative platform for change,” says Joon Silverstein, SVP, Global Marketing, Creative and Sustainability at Coach and Head of Coachtopia. “We know that to transform our impacts, we need to fundamentally shift mindsets—from seeing opportunity in waste to designing backwards to taking a more open-source approach to creativity.”
In keeping with that ethos, Coachtopia’s store environment will feature fixtures made with Coach leather production waste, neon signs made from industry scraps and offcuts, hangers and trays made from recycled paper or textiles, seating made from excess materials and unrepairable Coach bags and a flexible modular design that facilitates reuse. Each store environment also reflects Coachtopia’s collaborative ethos with bespoke furniture crafted by local artists using upcycled damaged Coach products, excess Coach materials and locally salvaged materials.
Coachtopia has launched on Coach.com in the U.S., Canada and U.K., and in the Selfridges flagship store in London. In coming weeks, it will be available at stores In New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami, as well as other locales in London and the U.K. Later this year, an expansion into select Asian stores is planned.