Customise & connect

MENTION Coach and leather comes to mind - a soft, tactile and incredibly smooth creation of hide that, with age, is almost buttery to the touch. Coach's most valuable asset is its leather oeuvre - from iconic handbags to wallets to shoes - and it all evolved from 1941 when its pioneering artisans drew inspiration from how baseball gloves felt after wear and tear.

The quinessential American luxury brand traces its beginnings to a family-run workshop on 34th Street in Manhattan that made mainly leather wallets and billfolds by hand. In 1946, Miles and Lillian Cahn joined the company. The couple, who embodied the American Dream, were at the time already owners of a leather handbag factory, and had considerable know-how in the leather business. In the 1960s, they hired creative director Bonnie Cashin who revolutionised the brand and made it a household name in the United States. Today, under British fashion designer and creative director Stuart Vevers, the brand spans leather goods, accessories, women's and men's fashion as well as enjoys a massive following online.

"Great brands are living and breathing organisms, and we're so lucky at Coach to have an authentic heritage," says Joshua Schulman, the company's chief executive and president. He's speaking to The Business Times during a visit in October - his first interview outside of North America since his appointment in June 2017. Mr Schulman was in town for the regional Store Managers' Conference where around 800 store managers from close to 60 countries- from Europe, China, Japan, South-east Asia and the Middle East - huddled in Singapore over three days to ensure that everyone is aligned on the latest season's mission statement.

"The store manager plays a critical role for us as they are on the front lines. They are complemented by store associates who are trained by the store manager. These few days are absolutely critical to cascade the brand message - and we do this once a year for our international businesses and once a year for our North American businesses," says the CEO.

"Coach is focused on filling out the lifestyle components of our business and we're really focused on growth beyond just handbags, such as our ready-to-wear business, our footwear business and our men's business. In Singapore, particularly, we're so gratified by the response of the customers to our ready-to-wear collections, it's really been a highlight for us in a market which is known for its fashionable customers, that the customer is choosing to wear Coach not just in leather goods but also in outer wear apparel."

For Mr Schulman, retail - and luxury - are in his blood. His fondest memories are of a mom-and-pop clothing store in Beverly Hills, California, when he was just a teenager. The man - whose purview of Coach's 950 stores in 60 countries includes more than 14,000 members of staff - reminisces fondly about his earliest, and probably his most formative, training.

"I've always had an interest in retail, and fashion brands, from a very young age. My first job was in a small children's clothing store in Beverly Hills, California. Even though that was one just store, I learnt so much about the customer: It was really about understanding him, understanding what type of product will excite, surprise and delight, and above all, it is about how to give great customer service. So many of those lessons from that small mom-and-pop shop have served me well throughout my career." Before helming Coach in 2017, Mr Schulman worked with some of the biggest names in luxury retail - Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Jimmy Choo, Gap, and Bergdorf Goodman and the Neiman Marcus Group. Coach is run by Tapestry, the parent company of three major brands: Coach New York, Kate Spade New York and Stuart Weitzman.

"I've been very fortunate in my career, to work for great brands. So when I joined Coach and Tapestry, it was obviously a new challenge, but really a terrific opportunity to tie together so many of the experiences I've had across different product categories, channels and geographies." The global nature of luxury retail dictates that Mr Schulman, who is a New York resident, keeps up a hectic itinerary to rally his teams and make sure the whole organisation pulls in the same direction: Singapore today, Japan tomorrow and New York after that. "One of the most exciting things about Coach is the international scope of our business. We really encourage our teams to think about the world as a whole - and that requires a lot of connection with our international business units.

"Coach is a very interesting brand because in some geographies such as the US and Japan, we were very established. In the US, we are 77 years old; in Japan, a little more than 30 years old. In these markets we're known for leather goods, but in nascent markets such as Greater China, which we took control of about 10 years ago, that continues to be a big focus for us. It is a very fast-growing market with young affluent fashion-involved customers and their experience with us is different from the US or Japan - they've come to view us as more of a lifestyle brand - and they've been at the forefront of embracing the ready-to-wear and the total look."

Promising market

South-east Asia remains a promising market for Coach. In Singapore, it has maintained a presence here since 2002 with nine stores and in Malaysia, it has 17 stores. "Another growth market for us is Australia-New Zealand where we have 21 stores. Increasingly, we're thinking about South-east Asia, Australia and NZ - with nearly 50 doors across the region.

"We have a strong team based in New York that sets the global tone for the brand worldwide, that is really focused on design, marketing and product development. On a global level, that's complemented by a strong global leadership structure, with strong business units, in different parts of the world. So a typical day in New York looks very different from a typical day when we're on the road - and requires really understanding the customer within the local markets."

And today it's no mean feat to "understand the customer" in these fickle times where luxury brands globally have struggled to be on the radar of millennials who demand more from their label. Business Insider in 2017 reported that even established high fashion brands were battling to remain relevant: some of the worst-performing brands of 2017 included Ralph Lauren and Christian Dior. More recently, Calvin Klein reported a close to 15 per cent fall in 2018 earnings (before interest and taxes) to US$121 million.

For Coach, what does luxury really mean in this age of deleterious disruption? "When you enter our store - such as our flagship store in Wisma Atria as well as our new store in MBS The Shoppes - you can see Coach's priorities come to life. One of our key strategies is to 'Modernise, Customise and Personalise'," explains Mr Schulman. "It's really about concentrating all our efforts at creating a customer experience that is highly personalised and which features a high component of individually customised products. We have a part of our collection that is called Coach Create, where the customer is able to pick some iconic elements and have a craftsman create a unique item, a one-of-a-kind item, while you wait.

"It's a way of having an almost bespoke experience with a luxury brand in-store, and it gives the customer a chance to really experience the highest level of leather craftsmanship as well as enjoy a vehicle for individual expression."

What Coach Create does is turn the concept of luxury on its head. No more top-down approach to luxury where the brand dictates how you should wear its designs. At Coach, you can customise your look to suit your personality. Both the stores at MBS The Shoppes and Wisma Atria feature a Craftsmanship Bar where a trained leather craftsman customises your handbag or wallet, or even your shoe, with a myriad of metal pins, leather flower cut-outs and hangtags. It's Coach's concept of Modern Luxury - more inclusive, collaborative and engaged, both at the brick-and-mortar store as well as when the customer goes online to share his purchases through selfies and with style blogs.

"More and more, today's customer is seeking out experiences. And for us at Coach, this is a way to combine an experience with an authentic part of our heritage and really create strong emotional connections. It's been a very gratifying project, and we're thrilled to expand the presence of Coach Create here in the Singapore market, because we know that there is a market to create very special experiences for both the Singaporean customer as well as tourists who walk into our stores.

"This customisation was something that really came about as a vehicle to share our story of leathercraft and our heritage for personal expression, which is so important. It's a great vehicle for the customer to communicate digitally on social media - about his or her creations from Coach Create - because we know there are a lot of customers taking selfies and documenting the process of creating their own unique Coach item. The customer today is obviously very digitally engaged, and we are investing a lot in our digital clienteling platforms, to further connect our store associates with our customers. Luxury retail today is very interactive, and it's an ongoing dialogue with our customers. Today's customer loves not only to shop for brands but also immerse themselves in the brand and experience the brand in a 360-degree way."

These days, the purchase becomes a talking point - the conversation goes on long after the ka-ching at the store - on social channels such as Facebook, Instagram or WeChat. Mr Schulman says that these platforms help the brand to involve the customer today more than was ever possible before in Coach's 77-year history.

Coach's brand story is an evolving one - and the customer has a voice in how the brand is being shaped for the next season, and the next. "Stuart Vevers may have the creative vision but at the heart of it - we are selling his vision for Coach and the customer is in dialogue with us: it's actually a great story."

Collaboration - not just with its customers - has proved to be the way forward for Coach. Mr Vevers recently teamed up with a tattoo artist, Chelsea Champlain, on the Fall 2018 collection's leathergoods, which feature roses, moths and floral skulls on the brand's signature glovetanned leather. Harpers Bazaar called it a collection to "lust after".

Says Mr Schulman: "It's a sign of the times - having a creative director like Stuart Vevers who is digitally engaged, as well as having a fanbase that is immersed in the brand. Ten years ago, you never would have heard about such a collaboration. These are the core values of Coach that run deep in its history - being optimistic, inclusive and innovative - and which are propelling us forward."

Star power

The tie-ups don't end there - Coach has released a new collection through its celebrity collaboration with singer Selena Gomez. It also announced in September 2018 that Black Panther actor Michael B Jordan will be the new face of Coach for its men's collection, the first ever global men's ambassador for the brand.

"Coach is a dual gender brand but so often the men's message can be overshadowed by the women's. We are focusing on the men's brand because it is now about 20 per cent of Coach's business, and we hope to reach US$1 billion in menswear revenue going forward." For its Chinese market it has signed on China actress Guan Xiaotong and in Japan, Kiko Mizuhara (of the movie Norwegian Wood fame) is now another new face of Coach, with her very own Coach Charlie Bag, featuring leather tea roses, semi-precious bling and a moon souvenir pin.

"Like any big business we look at our financial metrics and our KPIs, but really, behind all that is the customer, and we are focused on making positive brand impressions and making positive experiences. To us that makes up the building blocks that make the KPIs.

"Today, we talk about luxury that is not so much defined by exclusivity as inclusivity, and personal expression, quality and craft. Our success lies in how we combine an experience with our product, not a top-down approach but one that is highly inclusive. To us, that is a much more modern view of luxury."

JOSHUA SCHULMAN

CEO & President Coach New York

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California

Studied at New York University and Parsons School of Design

1991-1993 Senior account executive (Marc Jacobs), Perry Ellis International

1993-1997 VP/Director of Sales and Marketing, Richard Tyler

1997- 2000 Worldwide Director/Women's Ready to Wear, Gucci

2000-2005 EVP, Worldwide Merchandising and Sales, Yves Saint Laurent (Gucci Group)

2005-2006 MD/International Strategic Alliances and SVP/ International Merchandising, Gap Inc

2007- 2012 CEO, Jimmy Choo

2012-2014 President, Bergdorf Goodman (Neiman Marcus Group)

2014-2017 President, Bergdorf Goodman and NMG International (Neiman Marcus Group)

June 2017 Appointed Chief Executive Officer and President, Coach