Monday Muse: We’re California Dreamin’ About Coach x Rodarte

Coach x Rodarte

Coach x Rodarte

It’s an unlikely pair. High-fashion Rodarte, known for incorporating cerebral influences like the oceans of Monterey and L.A.’s chola culture, teaming with Coach, a brand that’s moving away from it’s reputation as a mall brand and it’s once-ubiquitous logo-covered bags. But here it is, the Coach x Rodarte collection, which includes bags and apparel, and everyone from fashion editors to It Girls and yes, even the girls who wore that C-covered jacquard with pride are brimming over with excitement.

“It’s very rare to have the opportunity to capture our ideas from a different angle,” Laura Mulleavy told Vogue of the collection. “It felt very seamless, and just so fun.”

The collection is a bicoastal endeavor, with the Mulleavy sisters working from their home base in Pasadena and Stuart Vevers, Coach’s creative director, working at Coach’s HQ in NYC. Ever since Vevers took over at Coach and brought the brand out of the mall and into a world of prairie prints and Americana, the brand’s seen a transformation. It was Vevers who contacted the Mulleavy sisters, citing their “freeing, thoughtful, and transportive” work for Rodarte.

Coach x Rodarte

Coach x Rodarte

The collection includes a selection of street style-ready knits and T-shirts, including a Réne Magritte-inspired set of sweaters that may just dethrone Coach’s T-rex, Rexy, from the top of the fashion pile. “This is a Coach Bag,” indeed. Together, Vevers and the Mulleavys worked to embellish leather pieces like moto jackets and circle dresses, to the nines. In true Rodarte style, it’s more is more, with 3-D leather sequins and brass studs all over leather bags, too. Like much of Rodarte’s work, it’s something that has to be seen, touched, and carried to be appreciated.

The collection includes three major colors: white, blush, and black. Each seems to stand alone, with the white boasting pearl embellishments, the black acting as a canvas for those leather sequins and beads, and the blush options using a more subdued black and silver palette. For more minimalist fans, there are leather totes boasting that cheeky Magritte-esque image and leather bags with pockets for those looking to tap into the Coach archives.

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“There was something quite intimate about suitcases on the floor and vintage samples and swatches everywhere,” Vevers told The Hollywood Reporter of the collab. Much of it was created at the Chateau Marmont. “We never had any references except Coach and Rodarte. It was about the connection and the clash of these two worlds.”

Coach x Rodarte

Coach x Rodarte

Naturally, these singular bags may boast a higher price tag than the usual Coach satchels, but considering the fashion pedigree — and that Rodarte hangtag — it’s a small price to pay for a piece of fashion history.

Shop the collection now at Coach.com.

Images courtesy Coach

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Author:Fashion Trends Daily Staff

Fashion Trends Daily Editors deliver the scoop on fashion, beauty, celebrity and runway trends.