Have you ever wondered what happens to your clothes when they no longer feel fit for your closet? It’s an interesting, and complicated, question to answer—and even more so when you factor in the many parts of the fashion cycle that are virtually unknown to most everyday shoppers. Sure, your well-loved pieces could go to a thrift store or a donation center. But, what if those items went back to their origins to become something entirely new? Such is the case with circular fashion, and the focus of Coach’s newly-minted sub-brand, Coachtopia.
Sustainable fashion isn’t a one-and-done type of thing, especially when you consider the potential for circularity. Turns out, the cycle doesn’t have to stop after one purchase of an environmentally-made piece or one donation, but rather, it can continue on (and on and on). Coach knows this, which is why it launched a line of pieces that involve using leftover leather scraps from other designs—and trust me when I tell you: it’s actually very cute.
“We’ve built Coachtopia as an entirely new world within Coach—an agile start-up with a mission to reimagine the end-to-end system,” Joon Silverstein, Coach’s senior vice president of global marketing, creative, and sustainability and head of Coachtopia, shared in a press release. “We’re building it not just for our consumers, but with them, inviting a growing community of hundreds of Gen Z individuals to join us on our Slack channel, collaborate with us on products, take center stage in our content and campaigns—and reimagine our future together.” Yes, Coach collaborated with passionate Gen Zers, including climate activists, designers, upcyclers, journalists, and others, to create Coachtopia; the results couldn’t be better.
While secondhand shopping is a great way to combat the climate crisis, another option is to support brands designing with circularity in mind. What you’ll find in Coachtopia is an array of bags and accessories, as well as footwear and clothes, each made with “recycled, repurposed, and renewable materials,” available in limited drops. Such pieces will be leather goods made using leftover scraps from other Coach designs (I’m particularly fond of the checkerboard shoulder bags), T-shirts, and sweatshirts featuring recycled cotton, along with shoes that have renewable EVA derived from sugarcane in their soles. Of course, that’s only a sampling of what’s coming from Coachtopia—it’s an entire world, if you will. So, without further ado, welcome to Coachtopia and shop the collection below to join in. I think you’ll like it here (but act fast, because it’s already starting to sell out).
Dale Arden Chong is the Senior Fashion Commerce Editor at ELLE.com. Previously, she was an editor at MensHealth.com and has written for Who What Wear, GLAMOUR, The Coveteur, and more. She loves fashion, food, and art, among other things—but her greatest love is K-pop idol V of BTS.