When Coachtopia, the subbrand of COACH, initially launched in 2022, it seemed like the fun younger sibling to its big sister brand. The bags featured the same leather quality that the brand is known for but with slightly more youthful styles like the Wavy Dinky (a handbag that is wavy on the bottom and features colorful adjustable straps). What was different, though, and possibly part of the immediate appeal to a younger audience, is that Coachtopia products are made using leather waste directly from Coach’s existing leather supply chain.
“The best way to improve fashion's impact is to make products that people can use for as long as possible, and then to create avenues for those products to have a second life or third life,” says Joon Silverstein, Coach’s SVP of Global Marketing and Sustainability and Head of Coachtopia. Teen Vogue caught up with her in Atlanta, Georgia, where she gave a TED Talk about how waste became a part of Coach’s move into the future. During the talk, she walked the captive audience through how she saw a problem as massive and overwhelming as textile waste as an opportunity to change the way we think about design.
Textile waste, meaning purchased pieces that are discarded without traceability, overstock that is destroyed and leftover scraps from cut and sew facilities that are landfilled, are a key component of the sustainability conundrum in fashion. Like most legacy brands, Coach does not only have to reconcile with a flawed system that doesn’t prioritize sustainability principles.
Thus, the Coachtopia Alter/Ego line was born. The bag is designed specifically to be a byproduct of waste from Coach’s flagship styles like the Tabby, Hampton and Brooklyn bags—that might otherwise have gone to landfills. “We're working to design out waste in the first place,” Silverstein explains. “We're asking, how will we design out waste in the first place by thinking about the waste we generate [at the start]?”
The Alter/Ego bags are all unique. The patterns are created to fit the scraps, meaning sometimes the color or individual grain of the leather might be different. There is the Alter/Ego Shoulder Bag, Hobo, and Satchel which are all patchwork bags that come in multiple colorways created from different colorways including a multi and a black and white. All the bags are also traceable with a digital passport chip or QR code that tells you where your bag came from, but it also allows you to resell on Poshmark in one click.
“Hides are irregularly shaped patterns,” Logan Duran, VP, of ESG & Sustainability at Tapestry, COACH’s parent company, explained to Teen Vogue on a Zoom call. “We've all made cookies at some point in our lives, and you can't always get everything out of the sheet. So, really, to be creative with the design elements to say, there is still good material left over here; what can we do with it? And so we collect and store that waste, and then our design teams go in, and they create collections using those materials. And it's an interesting and exciting design opportunity, mostly because you never know what you're going to get.”
Still, brands like Coach that are making positive and innovative steps forward are part of a system that continues to produce clothing, accessories and, ultimately, waste. Silverstein says that fact is not something she shies away from; in fact, she wants to embrace the faults to lead a shift – especially knowing what the future of fashion consumers will prioritize. Even more, they want other brands to do the same. “What we're doing is not proprietary trade secrets. It is extraordinarily hard because it involves changing mindsets – [both] within companies as well as outside companies. We hope that other brands will also be inspired and take similar steps,” she says. Silverstein went on to acknowledge that Coach's partnerships with customers and other brands like Poshmark have helped them move forward and make circularity a priority.
It’s also something that could be implemented across Tapestry, which also owns Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman. “Ultimately, we would like the principles of sustainability throughout the portfolio,” Duran said. "We aim to meet customer expectations while celebrating the beauty of fashion, identity, and the products that define personal style. It’s about empowering customers with choices that align with their values, without requiring them to compromise on quality, self-expression or values.”
The Alter/Ego bag is an example of building sustainability into the existing process to make a small change into something that’s not just about a waste crisis (which we have) but about style too. That’s the thing about sustainability. Whether it’s vintage or upcycled, it’s actually a way of getting piece that’s not only meant to last but is uniquely yours.
