By Katie Deighton
Coach has emerged as one of fashion's most surprisingly bankable and buoyant brands.
The 85-year-old label, tagged by the Observer as once being "synonymous with a particularly milquetoast suburban sensibility," today posts fast-growing sales among famously fickle Gen Z shoppers. Annual revenue hit $5.6 billion in the year through June 28, up 10% in constant currency. And it drew nearly three million new customers in the latest quarter, the most ever.
At the helm of its brand resurgence is Joon Silverstein, a chief marketing officer who only began describing herself as a marketer a few years ago.
Silverstein has been a corporate consultant, strategist, store manager, country manager, customer experience executive, sustainability leader and digital chief. But before that she was a cultural anthropology major and Fulbright scholar who studied cultural identity among second-generation North African women in France.
"That lens, that curiosity about understanding people, has been the lens that has shaped my entire career," said Silverstein, who was promoted to Coach CMO last January. More than 10 years into her tenure at the Tapestry-owned brand, she still routinely travels the globe visiting the homes of women ages 18 to 30 -- Coach's target customer base -- to learn their hopes, dreams, fears and wardrobe contents.
"A lot of brands mistake data for real insight," she said. "You don't learn about people or culture by reading research reports or by studying them afar."
Coach got a boost a few years back when Gen Z consumers began to obsess over relics of the Y2K era. Silverstein's ethnographic approach to customer research helped form Coach's marketing strategy to keep them coming after the trend waned.
The brand has moved away from the typical fashion playbook of setting an aspirational look and lifestyle in stone, encapsulated in a painfully unrelatable muse. Instead, it aims to be a company that encourages consumers' self-expression, a goal that was informed by those Gen Z interviews, according to Silverstein.
"A foundational insight was how they see identity, which is as multiple and fluid, not as singular and fixed," she said. "They're looking for more confidence to be able to explore and express their many identities."
Coach to that end markets its bestselling Tabby bag as a versatile item that works in contexts including school and work, accessorized with any of dozens of charms from cutesy carrots to diamante bows. It develops big-sisterly campaign messages that have encouraged consumers to set the pace of their own lives (spring 2025's "On Your Own Time") and to channel the bravery of their childhoods (fall 2025's "Revive Your Courage").
It also pulls a range of celebrities and partner organizations into its marketing efforts: rapper Lil Nas X, the Women's National Basketball Association, "The Summer I Turned Pretty" actor Lola Tung and, for a new campaign starting Wednesday, Sunnie Reads, the Gen Z-focused book club from Reese Witherspoon's media company Hello Sunshine.
"Explore Your Story" will be Coach's biggest campaign to date, inspired by storytelling and books. It spans TV and digital ads, book club and college campus events around the globe, as well as partnerships with the publishing company Penguin Random House, the Chinese state-owned newspaper China Youth Daily and a stable of young authors. Shrunken versions of novels like "Sense and Sensibility" and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" will be sold by Coach as readable bag charms.
"We heard everywhere in the world that Gen Z are returning to books and long-form storytelling as a way to slow down, make sense of themselves, explore who they are and feel connected to others," Silverstein said.
Chic at scale
Economic shifts have helped so-called accessible luxury brands like Coach, which sell handbags and clothes at lower prices than designers like Prada and Chanel. (Coach's small Tabby shoulder bag retails for $350, while a Chanel Classic 11.2 purse is priced upward of $10,000). While analysts have accused some high-end luxury designers of taking their price hikes too far, Coach and its American rival Ralph Lauren have been able to raise prices without losing customers as a result of their work to improve their brand image.
Coach's young customer acquisition tear is also driving top-line gains, according to Tapestry executives. The company in 2021 made the decision to funnel its marketing efforts into women in the market for their first luxury handbag as they turn into adulthood.
"That's really when memory structures are being formed, when self-expression is being negotiated, and we found being relevant at that time is so important for being relevant for the rest of time," Silverstein said. It also means its target customer base is, in theory, annually replenished by around 25 million people -- the number of women in Coach markets who turn 18 each year, she said.
"It's really easy to be seduced by your own myths, to think that, for example, every Coach customer out there is that cool Brooklynite wearing vintage," she said. "But our brand is about scale, and we need to be acquiring customers at scale."
Sales for the quarter ended Dec. 27 rose 25% from the year prior to $2.14 billion.
"This performance reinforces our conviction that Coach will be a $10 billion brand over time," Tapestry Chief Executive Joanne Crevoiserat told analysts on a February earnings call.
Outsider in the in crowd
Silverstein blends in with the cool kids of the fashion world, often photographed at swanky Manhattan dinners wearing a silky dress, leather and high heels. She didn't always expect this kind of life.
Born in Brooklyn to Korean immigrant parents, Silverstein originally anticipated a career in academia or international development. Instead, a stint at Boston Consulting Group led to a strategy and business-development role at lingerie brand Victoria's Secret. She later moved to Louis Vuitton as its first vice president charged with redesigning the customer experience, where she refined her fieldwork-heavy market research strategy.
At the time, it "wasn't 'luxury' to talk to customers," she said. She realized showing her bosses videos of customer and employee interviews was the most effective way to get them to listen.
Coach was struggling to remain relevant when she joined in 2014 to lead global customer experience. Its market capitalization fell to roughly $11 billion that year from around $22 billion in 2012 after losing ground to accessible luxury competitors like Michael Kors and relying heavily on discounting.
But the recently installed chief executive Victor Luis was already closing underperforming stores and winding back its reliance on outlet sales. Another new arrival, Executive Creative Director Stuart Vevers, had just designed Coach's first ready-to-wear clothing line, expanding its portfolio beyond bags and accessories.
Vevers and Silverstein's collaboration grew tighter in 2023 when the marketer was named head of Coachtopia, a subbrand of items made with fabric scraps and recycled materials. Coach continues to prominently advertise its sustainability credentials when other brands have backed off marketing their environmental bona fides.
Gen Z consumers, Silverstein said, tell her in interviews that they care about sustainability, even if they often trade it for fast fashion in a bid to express their various identities.
"I'm not passionate about learning about consumers just for the sake of it," she said. "Understanding consumers enables cultural relevance, which drives brand desire, which is what fuels performance, and sales."
Write to Katie Deighton at katie.deighton@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 25, 2026 09:00 ET (14:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments