Coach: Introducing Coachtopia
For more than a decade we’ve been getting creative with Coach on a wide variety of campaigns and visuals, helping to further cement them as one of the leading fashion brands around the world. We’re proud to share our latest collaboration with Coach, bringing them one step closer to our hearts – this time we helped Coach with the creation of a new sub brand visual identity that is focused on sustainability, Coachtopia.
Enter, Coachtopia
It’s been a long time coming and we’re so excited to share all the creative work we’ve put into Coach’s new sustainability-focused brand, Coachtopia – just in time for this year’s Earth Day too! We’re extremely proud to showcase the wide range of creative collaborations we have worked on for Coachtopia, a brand that is putting circular fashion first through the use of pioneering production, technology and lifecycle concepts. And the coolest part? Coachtopia is all centered around a collective of Gen Z designers, influencers and activists that are all working together to make positive impact in the world.
Photo by: Adrian Nina of the Coachtopia Ergo bag that has sold out twice in the first week of the brand’s existence!
If you’re fans of our work, you may have already seen the Coach (Re)Loved ReMade advertising campaign that was focused on sustainability, where old materials were used to make new products. With the (Re)Loved ReMade campaign we created two heartwarming stop motion films for the Coach Remade Rexy Puzzle and the Coach Remade Bear. Today, we’re excited to finally be able to share all of our Coachtopia creations that have helped shaped the brand creative and visual identity – including a variety of BTS vignettes and glimpses into the making of their super cool campaign film.
What is Coachtopia?
Coachtopia is a new sustainable fashion brand that was pioneered by global fashion powerhouse house Coach. Coachtopia is pioneering a circular future for Gen Z designers, thinkers, makers, and consumers. The brand’s goal was to completely rethink the way we use waste and to find better ways to up-cycle, recycle, and transform fashion items after they have been purchased / used.
The Coachtopia community (or neighborhood as one of the community members stated in our interview with them) is made up of passionate, creative people that love the world they live on. This neighborhood is collaborating directly with Coach to disrupt the fashion world forever. Focusing solely on what the Gen-Z demographic wants, Coachtopia gives our younger generation a platform for their creative voices, allowing everyone involved to contribute to a sustainable future on planet earth. The fashion that is created however is for everyone and there are pieces that will appeal to all generations – key earring anyone?
What is Circular Fashion?
Circular fashion is an innovative approach to fashion that creates a closed-loop system, where materials and products are continuously re-used, recycled, or up-cycled, minimizing waste and reducing the industry’s environmental impact.
Unlike the traditional, linear, fast fashion model where clothes are produced, consumed, and then discarded, circular fashion products are designed to have multiple lives. Circular fashion places high importance on the way products are designed, produced and used in ways that ensure to preserve the products lifecycle for as long as possible.
The Beta Community
Our very first work for Coachtopia was early in 2022 when we were asked to come in to Coach HQ to shoot some Q&A sessions with some Gen Z consumers. At that time I don’t think the full idea of Coachtopia had been formed but the importance of these sessions helped to shape the very early moments of the Coachtopia brand. Fast forward to the summer of 2022 and we were asked to create a sizzle reel that would serve as an introductory internal hype video to help welcome and teach new community members about Coachtopia and this new fashion approach.
This introduction to the new brand was super exciting to work on and gave us the energy needed to play the long game and hype ourselves up for the next months of continued collaboration in the background. A majority of our creative endeavors for Coachtopia came in the form of hand-drawn animations which take a lot of time, patience and effort to make.
Behind The Scenes of the Coachtopia Campaign
Further along in the journey of Coachtopia we enjoyed a fast-paced and chaotic run-and-gun behind-the-scenes shoot with some key Coachtopia community members. Our BTS work consisted of a full day shoot, pulling people aside and capturing as much BTS footage and interviews as we could.
Photo by: Adrian Nina of us shooting an interview with “The Summer I Turned Pretty” star Lola Tung
The final deliverables were a mixture of short interview clips, talent vignettes, photos and playful footage showcased in a variety of formats. With our small, two unit team we captured everything we needed to in one day and have been edited everything together at our studios for the past month.
Photo by: Adrian Nina of the Coachtopia Ergo bag silhouette
Visual Identity Through Logo Stings
Any new campaign, brand, or side arm needs a strong visual identity to help it stand apart from its parent company while still feeling familiar. We were excited to be able to let the portal to the deep creative realms open up to craft some of the coolest, original and unique logo stings we’ve ever made.
Coachtopia is going to be a living and breathing eco-system in the fashion industry and so variety is the antidote to the chaos of keeping things fresh as it develops. As such, we explored many different styles and visual indents to come up with a really eccentric mixed bag of tricks. We ended up creating 21 different logo stings to present to the team, six of which will be used moving forward as official Coachtopia idents.
How-To: NFC Chip Animation
To finish off the current Coachtopia collaborations and to tie everything together for our story so far, we also created a cute hand-drawn animation clip that explains how to use the NFC chip technology that is included with all Coachtopia products.
Our animated film helps instruct the viewer on the unique concept of being able to track the full history of a fashion item. Every Coachtopia item will contain an NFC chip that acts as a digital passport. When someone buys the item they can scan it with their phone and open up the app and connect the product to their account. If they sell the bag they can relinquish ownership and pass it on to someone else. It will also track all care, repair and upkeep that has been done to the item. It’s a beautiful way to build a more sustainable fashion community and will give consumers a unique, new way to interact with the products they buy.
A Living and Breathing Campaign
As each Coachtopia product is made, its story begins. Our creative agency heavily relies on culture for inspiration, and sustainability efforts are one of the recent and fast-growing trends in our culture today and is something we also care greatly about. Sustainability is taking over discussions and many brand’s initiatives and is something we will be working more on in the future.
Photo by: Adrian Nina – Portrait of Coachtopia designer Sabrina Lua
Circular fashion is just a small piece of the puzzle to help us minimize waste, reduce pollution that is associated with fashion production and it’s untimely disposal. There is a lot of work to do and the direction Coach is taking such a legacy brand is truly inspirational and something that other fashion power houses should take notice of.
We’re really excited for our Coachtopia collaborations to further develop and live and breathe alongside our other creative work. Stay tuned as we drop more content for Coachtopia!
