Coach unveils circular sub-brand ‘Coachtopia’

US-based brand Coach, best known for its expertise in leather craftsmanship, is moving one step closer to being a fully circular corporation with the launch of its new eco-friendly sub-brand, “Coachtopia.”

Coachtopia emphasizes collective creation and cyclical craft. With intentions to enter Asia later this year, the brand will first debut in the US, Canada, and the UK.

The new line is based on Coach’s Made Circular design philosophy, which consists of three guiding principles that guide how the company “designs, crafts, and reuses products” with the goal of advancing a circular fashion system.

Coachtopia debuts with an assortment of footwear, ready-to-wear, ready-to-wear accessories, and bags for both sexes that are constructed from recycled, repurposed, and renewable materials. As the brand expands, it will produce small batches of experimental products that push circular craft to the limit.

Additionally, each item has a digital passport that provides transparency into its components, Made Circular design, and environmental effects. Customers can trace a product’s journey as it is fixed, restored, reused, and redesigned throughout several lives by using the digital passport.

Joon Silverstein, SVP of Global Marketing, Creative and Sustainability at Coachtopia, said that circularity is about reimagining not just the product lifecycle, but the relationship between brand, planet, and consumer. For this reason, Coachtopia was developed as a platform for collaboration and as a research lab to further circularity in the fashion industry.

Silverstein added that they are aware that in order to modify their impacts, they must fundamentally change their ways of thinking—from viewing trash as an opportunity to designing backwards and adopting a more open-source approach to creation. As a completely new environment within Coach, they created Coachtopia as an agile start-up with the goal of reimagining the end-to-end system.

Coachtopia is shifting the relationship between the brand and the consumer, creating products not just for but also with a new generation of environmentally conscious customers. The brand was developed in collaboration with a group of Generation Z people, including upcyclers, journalists, filmmakers, and fashion aficionados.

Stuart Vevers, Coach Creative Director, said that it’s a bigger, bolder step forward in realizing their vision for sustainability at Coach, where they prioritize experimenting and learning, and ethical design intentions over cookie-cutter perfection. Coachtopia raises the bar by encouraging them to “design in reverse,” with circularity as their primary consideration, in partnership with the next generation and their upbeat future outlook.

This program builds on efforts made by Coach to enhance the overall sustainability of its operations, such as the Coach (Re)Loved program. Since its April 2021 launch, this has given 20,000 Coach products a fresh lease on life.