It’s no secret that Coach’s Stuart Vevers is great at incorporating American fashion into his most iconic movie moments.
After exploring everything from Western patterns to ’80s-key kids, the designer and executive creative director is entering a new American era – millennial nostalgia. Case in point: the American brand’s shoes on Monday at New York Fashion Week’s Spring ’23 ready-to-wear men’s and women’s collections.
Held at the Park Avenue Armory on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the collection opens with some common tropes of American fashion, starting with the beige world of khakis, trench coats and preppy pieces. It then morphed into a more edgy line of leather jackets, many of which were worn as oversized dresses.
There’s plenty of sneakers out there, designed as scruffy high-tops with an ’80s feel (usually Vevers’ Coach), plus a range of luscious Mary Jane heels and quaint socks, this is a line of jelly sandals that sparks a gut feeling Reaction – likely the collective reaction of the show’s millennial attendees.
While the shoe became popular in the early ’80s, when an actual company called Jelly Shoes gained traction in Paris with the open ballet flat style, it gained more mainstream American ubiquity in the early ’90s, not only with Ballerinas, and fisherman sandals. Peruse any list that’s poetic about ’90s kids’ fashion nostalgia, and jelly sandals are sure to include it.
At Coach, this sandal has both men’s and women’s styles and is made with plenty of leather to make it more sturdy. The sandals also come with a matching PVC clutch, also in bright colors, providing further punctuation for the dark neutral ready-to-wear.
Millennials have been waiting for an excuse to start eating jelly again. Coaches may help with that trend next spring.
