Alaa Balkhy Reports Back From Coach’s Autumn-Winter 2024 New York City Show
Take a sneak peek into the New York Fashion Week Coach Autumn-Winter 2024 show with Harper’s Bazaar Saudi’s Contributing Editor Alaa Balkhy…
The James B. Duke House is an opulent mansion located on New York City’s Upper East Side; the mansion is a prime example of Beaux-Arts architecture and the location for the Coach Autumn-Winter 2024 show.
Walking into a space featuring a wide array of fine arts, gilded rooms, and intricate woodwork – it feels like the ultimate American study where we are greeted by warm drinks (which are very much needed in one-degree weather).
“My vision for Fall was to explore the archetypes of codes of luxury, recontextualized through the progressive spirit of New York today,” said Coach’s Creative Director Stuart Vevers. “I was inspired by the city as a setting for love stories, old and new, the tension between the romantic and picturesque and the real and spontaneous that is unique to here.”
Further evolving Vevers’ vision of American classicism juxtaposed with a youthful counter-culture attitude, Autumn 2024 introduced heritage archetypes in leather, denim, and cotton, lovingly distressed to offer a statement about the beauty and value of garments with character and a story. In outerwear, the house continued to build upon its iconic silhouettes, like the trench coat and shearling leather jackets, while also introducing the cardigan jacket reinterpreted in distressed materials drawn from workwear. In addition, the house explored tailoring and dress silhouettes, introducing tuxedo jackets and trousers, contrasted with collegiate hoodies and school blazers custom-embroidered with unique Coach crests and the initials of the models who walked the show.
The show offered guests a front-row look at the collection that imagined a “Coach Club of New York City,” along with ID cards filled out by the Coach Family as they entered the house. The soundtrack featured versions of “Moon River,” including new compositions by music director Fabrizio Moretti of The Strokes.
The music makes it all come together as Coach celebrates its New York heritage while models on the runway pass by holding bags with NYC-themed charms that are so familiar to us New Yorkers, yet so nostalgic to the day we first moved here; the charms adorning the bags included Apple charms, “I <3 NY” mugs, distressed NY baseball hats, figurines of the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, and yellow taxis.
This collection celebrated not just the fashion but the enduring allure of New York, capturing the hearts of those who have lived their own New York love stories.
Lead Image: Instagram.com/@alaa
Video by Alaa Balkhy