rcular pathways All Coachtopia leather products are crafted from Coach production waste, or made with at least 50 per cent recycled leather scraps from tanneries. Other materials used across the brand’s line include 95 per cent recycled cotton for hoodies and t-shirts, 100 per cent recycled polyester for canvas totes, and so on. Once the materials are sourced, the products are made in such a way to be more easily disassembled, repaired, and reimagined for second and third lives. Design features like removable screw-back hardware, detachable handles and straps, binding or seam-out constructions, and mono-material designs, keep materials in use at their highest value and out of landfills.  The third principle ensures that consumers also play a role in creating a circular pathway for material reuse and wear. Each Coachtopia product can be traded in at a Coach brick-and-mortar store in exchange for credit, calculated according to the item’s original price and current condition. Each Coachtopia piece comes with a unique digital “passport”, accessed via a near-field communication chip, to track its journey across multiple lives, i.e. reconstructions and repurchases. Who is Coachtopia for? Without a doubt, Coachtopia was designed for the Gen Z consumer.  From the wavy font of the logo to its array of items like bucket hats, denim skater shorts, and teeny bags reminiscent of the early 2000s, Coachtopia reflects the trends that many Gen Z consumers are leaning toward.  With prices ranging from $55 to $495, Coachtopia products are priced lower than Coach’s other products, making the brand more accessible to the younger, more money-conscious Gen Z consumer.  Besides targeting Gen Z in its marketing, with a strong focus on user-generated content and its commercial, Coachtopia is also working with the Gen Z consumer, both behind and in front of the camera, to better serve the interests of the younger, fashion-savvy generation.  The Coach Foundation collaborated with the Council of Fashion Designers of America to launch the Coach Dream It Real x CFDA Design Scholarship for the 2022-2023 school year to provide 15 students with design grants. The students participated in a challenge to transform Coach’s scrap materials into upcycled Coachtopia designs and the designs of two students, Angel Pan and Vivian Luo, were chosen and are now available for purchase on the brand’s site.  At the 2023 Retail Influencer CEO Forum hosted by specialty public relations firm Berns Communications Group, head of Coachtopia and senior vice president of global marketing, creative and sustainability at Coach, Joon Silverstein, discussed the importance of collaborating with Gen Z consumers.  “Since the earliest days, when Coachtopia was just a nugget in our brain, before we even named it, we had engaged a growing group of Gen Z across all walks of life; designers, climate activists, journalists, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, fashion enthusiasts, and people who cared,”  Silverstein told Joanna Coles, the CEO of Northern Star Acquisition Company and former chief content officer of Hearst Magazines.  “We’ve been pressure testing and co-creating with them at every step and not only getting their feedback and perspectives but also using Coachtopia as a platform for change. So we’re really thinking of this as this holistic community,” he explained. Coach’s sustainability journey Coachtopia is not Coach’s first foray into sustainable design. In 2021, Coach launched its (Re)Loved collection, a line of restored and upcycled handbags, and the Coach (Re)Loved Exchange where customers can recycle their pre-owned items for store credit. In the same year, the brand came under fire after a viral TikTok video claimed the label intentionally “slashed” unwanted items for tax purposes. On its Instagram page, Coach stated: “We always strive to do better and we are committed to leading with purpose and embracing our responsibility as a global fashion brand to effect real and lasting change for our industry… We are committed to sustainability. We have now ceased destroying in-store returns of damaged and unsalable goods and are dedicated to maximizing such products reuse in our Coach (Re)Loved and other circularity programs.”  Fashion brands have been forced to reckon with the issue of unsalable goods since July 2018, when luxury British brand Burberry revealed that it had burned $38 million worth of unsold clothing and beauty products that year.  Resale retail company ThredUp penned an open letter to the British luxury brand, stating, “We can’t afford to waste perfectly good clothes anymore. We are in the midst of an environmental crisis exacerbated by the fashion industry… Today we invite you to send any unsold Burberry product to ThredUp for resale back into the circular economy, and we’ll donate 100 percent of the proceeds to the environmental charity of your choice.” In September 2018, Burberry became the first luxury brand to announce it would no longer destroy unsold products and would begin phasing out materials made with fur.  Coachtopia’s retail future Coachtopia opened its first dedicated pop-up in August at 143 Prince Street in SoHo, and has also opened several stores in the UK and Canada. At the recent Retail Influencer CEO Forum, Joon revealed that Coachtopia would be opening pop-ups in four more cities on September 18: Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York – in the Coach flagship store. The sub-brand will also be launching in Japan this September.  Coach is not the only brand reusing old materials to create “circular” products. In 2022, Amercian apparel brand Levi’s partnered with Swedish textile-to-textile recycling company Renewcell to create jeans out of post-consumer recycled denim and other recyclable components.  As the conversation around sustainability and circular products continues to gain steam in the fashion world, largely prompted by Gen Z consumers, it is likely that more brands will be looking into methods for repurposing used materials and leveraging circular design principles.