Coachtopia: There is No Trash, Only Treasure
Welcome to Coachtopia, a circular fashion utopia, where your wildest sustainability dreams come true; in this world every inch of leather is recycled, and innovative materials are born, and reborn.
Here the age-old saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is fully realized. Because in Coachtopia, the leather scrapyard, once a pit stop on the way to the landfill, is now the birthplace of raw materials.
Sound too good to be true? That’s because Coach and its sub-brand are a forerunner in reshaping the perception of luxury goods, and thus, perfection, by using (and reusing) materials. Prepare to take a trip down The Road to Circularity, a new docu-series that follows Coachtopia on a journey along its own supply chain, as it pulls back the curtain, so to speak, and sheds light on how it’s moving the industry closer to a circular fashion utopia.
The road may be long, but it’s a road that’s worth taking –– All aboard! Destination; Coachtopia. First stop; Chennai, India.
Coachtopia, launched in April 2023, is Coach’s answer to the crisis posed by the fashion industry’s consumption and emissions. It’s also a response to Gen Z’s calls for transparency in fashion. Now, Coachtopia prides itself on being what feels like the industry’s first genuine response to an overwhelming need for circular fashion. The term refers to a closed-loop system, where waste is reduced and the lifespan of goods maximized. Reaching a fully circular business model remains at the heart of the Coachtopia endeavor, with the brand dedicating itself to reimagining the product lifecycle; from the end to the beginning instead. By standing apart, yet still connected to Coach, Coachtopia harnesses the heritage brand's existing strength in craft and leather expertise, whilst also having the space to step outside existing production systems to drive radical ways of thinking and working in luxury leather goods.
“Coachtopia is not an imaginary utopia,” says Joon Silverstein Coach’s SVP of Global Marketing and Sustainability, and Head of Coachtopia. “It’s very much grounded in the real challenges we face today, and the real solutions we are pioneering.”
Those challenges include the heretofore unsustainable industry practices. For example, the production of materials is responsible for more than 38% of fashion’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a study conducted by McKinsey & Company, in 2020, with copious amounts of leather offcuts sent straight to the landfill. A handful of years ago, the fashion industry’s emissions at large made up about 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which translates to more carbon than the “economies of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom combined.”
To kick-start the series, we follow Aditi Mayer, Sustainable Fashion Writer and Climate Activist, in an episode titled “Making with Waste”, as she visits KH Exports –– a family-run leather manufacturer and Coach partner since 1987. It is with the help of KH that Coachtopia has been able to reimagine waste into raw material, and from there, into beautiful things for us to enjoy. To do so, new processes were created; the factory saves, sorts, and classifies leather waste in preparation to extend the life cycle of once useless waste.
We trail Mayer on the ground as she makes her way through the factory, talking to artisans, designers, craft makers, and production specialists, to learn all about the ways they’re working toward not just a sustainable but circular fashion future –– hence the episode title.
For Coachtopia, this means challenging KH to go one step further: from sustainable thinking to circular thinking. “Circularity is not just about changing the way we make but changing the way we think,” Silverstein believes. Further, “to envision a world in which circularity is at the core, we have to design from the very outset, for circularity,” she continues, meaning it’s time to clean the slate and go back to square one.
At KH leather off-cuts have been given a new life, laying the foundation for Coachtopia’s designs. From weaving to threading to upcycling; for Coachtopia it’s about working backward with what they have, rather than creating from scratch, preventing the addition of more waste in the already overflowing wasteland.
These techniques have led to products like Coachtopia’s Upcrushed Upcrafted Leather, which through heat and pressure, transforms irregular scraps of leather production waste into beautiful, suede-like materials, each one different from the last. KH takes it one step further, recycling the waste of the waste, and the waste of that waste, meaning no waste is left behind.
Since the beginning, Coachtopia has committed to prioritizing progress over perfection, a huge cultural change for a brand operating in an industry that prides itself on perfection, Silverstein shares. It is here that consumers' relationship to perfection is challenged: What is perfect? Why do we crave it? And what is the real cost of this so-called perfection?
“It’s startling to think that, because of our cultural mindset around perfection, the natural grain of leather can be seen as a defect, leading to waste,” Mayer concludes whilst talking to KH Export’s VP of Production Mohammed Ajml about the industry’s rigorous standards of perfection.
Not only is Coachtopia discovering ways to repurpose the waste, it’s also on a mission to help reframe the collective cultural mindset around beauty. The result –– a beautiful mosaic –– whereby heritage craft comes together with waste materials to create a new subset of luxury.
As Silverstein shares, “Circularity is not just about what we produce as a business, but how we consume as a culture,” which is why Coachtopia has engaged a handful of talented Gen Z designers, activists, makers, and consumers to form a Beta Community, and it is conversations with this inspiring community that has allowed Coachtopia to flourish.
This is just the beginning; as the docuseries series continues, The Road to Circularity will travel the globe, going behind the scenes to meet the people and partners committed to building this circular fashion utopia, with the hope that one day this faraway land will be less imagined and more tangible.
The road to circularity may be long, but it’s a necessary road for us to take –– so get packing and hop on board the one-way express to Coachtopia. To learn more about Coachtopia’s Road to Circularity watch the full episode here.
