Wake up, babe, Coach is making a comeback

What’s common to a pinstripe vintage Jean Paul Gaultier suit, a white train T-shirt by Phoebe Philo, an Ulla Johnson jumpsuit, a pair of Prada Mohawk pumps, an Aritzia blazer, and a pair of Golden Goose boots? The company they’re keeping, of course. That’s Andy Sachs yes, but also one rather staid vintage Coach Metropolitan briefcase. A sturdy, dependable carry-all for sturdy, dependable Andy.

I acknowledge the fact that the paps are ruining movies for us, especially those where the visual element—fashion—forms the most crucial aspect of a film. Case in point: The Devil Wears Prada 2. But a vintage Coach turning into the omnipresent accessory of the film feels like a monumental decision, one worth discussing.

For long, the American brand has sat on the cusp of luxury; it was the brand you turned to when you wanted the quality of a luxury leather bag from the Italian heavyweights but found their price tags prohibitive.

The past year, however, has coated Coach with a sheen of desirability that’s been hard to ignore. It started around mid-2024, when Bella Hadid started carrying a hobo-shaped black leather tote everywhere. The Brooklyn 39 skyrocketed in popularity and, thanks to stans on TikTok and Instagram, was everywhere you look—online and IRL. That a “practical” bag whose aesthetic eschewed all the tropes of Insta bait (hello, Jacquemus too-hot-for-a-lippie Chiquito) would spark a wave of unboxing videos and bag-charm tutorials finally seemed like an acknowledgement that, maybe—just maybe—we’re getting smarter in our embracing of what luxury brands throw at us. Expensive is not always better, and with luxury handbag prices rising to ridiculous heights, owning a Coach bag comes with a side of smugness. (There’s a Brooklyn 39 sitting on my desk right now, expressing silent agreement.)

The Coach spring/summer 2025 show played a part in drumming up excitement around the brand too. On the runway, the bags suddenly blew up to cartoonish proportions, and the giant Kisslock—a squishy, huggable pillow-like, duffel-sized clutch that Mary Poppins would approve of—was later endorsed by Carrie Bradshaw in And Just Like That… Meanwhile, Gen Z’s obsession with the brand was further cemented with its special The Summer I Turned Pretty capsule collection this year, which included the Pillow Tabby shoulder bag and plenty of adorable bag charms.

The brand’s resurgence, however, can’t solely be credited to pop-culture-derived fame. We’re more discerning of where we’re spending big bucks. We know the difference between epi, croc-embossed, glove-tanned, and full-grain pebbled leather. We expect the hardware on a bag to not rust, stain, or tarnish. There’s an entire genre of Reels creators like Rachel Noar or @vintagecoachie, whose sole purpose is to find authentic vintage Coach bags and refurbish them. Thanks to them and personalities like Volkan Yilmaz, better known as Tanner Leatherstein, we understand better the crucial aspects of construction that would otherwise have eluded us. We can now say things like “the edge paint has been applied with enough thickness”. As he tears into, peals, scratches, and rubs acetone on various panels of a bag with an enthusiasm that looks like schadenfreude, guess which brand gets his consistent nod of approval? Yup, Coach.

The brand, too, knows TikTok’s and Reels’ ongoing obsession with vintage Coach. In 2021 they launched their Coach (Re)Loved to sell and trade your pre-used Coach bags, which has allowed them to bring back gems like the Bleecker Street Haversack, a satchel with patch pockets featuring Coach’s classic turn-lock closures, and the Classic Manor bag, a silhouette first introduced in 1995.

Maybe it’s in this acknowledgement of the popularity of its vintage pieces that the brand’s autumn/winter 2025 line, called Loved Leather, features versions of the Tabby and Brooklyn 28 in glove-tanned leather with a worn-in finish. 

In 2025, the charm of logos has worn off. What excites us are labels like Polène and Stow London, where the blinkers-on focus remains on silhouette, material, and construction. Coach, here, is the dependable older sibling. All we can say is, they’re rubbing off on us.