How Tapestry CEO Joanne Crevoiserat Is Making Coach Cool Again

Joanne Crevoiserat wearing a white outfit speaks on stage." width="970" height="775" data-caption='Joanne Crevoiserat—wearing a Coach silk scarf—speaks on stage during Semafor World Economy on April 14, 2026 in Washington, D.C. <span class="media-credit">Getty Images for Semafor World E</span>'>

For about a decade leading up to COVID-19, Coach was on a slow decline. Despite its reputation for premium materials and craftsmanship, the brand was increasingly seen as something of an outlet afterthought. But in recent years, the 85-year-old handbag maker has staged a striking comeback. With its colorful “Tabby” a few years ago and the more recent street-chic “Brooklyn,” along with the ambassadorship of youthful Hollywood icons like Selena Gomez and Elle Fanning, Coach is suddenly cool again. All of it suggests that the turnaround under Joanne Crevoiserat, the CEO of Coach’s parent company Tapestry (which also owns Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman), is working.

The secret formula is all about the young consumer. “We have made the strategic choice to focus on the young consumer. The younger generation really sets the tone for all generations, and we’re seeing that in our business,” Crevoiserat said during an onstage interview at Semafor World Economy in Washington D.C. on Monday (April 13). 

“We laugh around our executive committee table, but nobody’s asking me what’s cool or what’s fashionable,” the 62-year-old executive added with a chuckle.

Gen Z shoppers accounted for about a third of Tapestry’s new customers during its latest fiscal quarter ended December, the company said, contributing to strong revenue growth. Tapestry’s total sales rose 14 percent year-over-year to $2.5 billion, more than 85 percent of which came from Coach, whose own sales jumped 25 percent from a year earlier. Crevoiserat said Tapestry is seeing double-digit growth in all of its key markets.

Coach’s strong performance stands in stark contrast to a sector-wide slowdown in the higher end of luxury retail and weakening consumer sentiment among the middle class. “People ask me all the time, ‘Isn’t this young consumer under pressure? How is your business still so healthy?’ The answer is, we stay close to our consumers,” Crevoiserat said. “We really want to understand what they’re going through, how they’re feeling.”

That understanding is rooted in data-driven insights as much as creative intuition on what resonates with the consumer—what Crevoiserat calls a balancing act between “logic and magic.”

“We’re harnessing a lot of data to understand the consumer at a really granular level, but then we go that step deeper, and we go into their homes to really understand where the tensions are in their life. It’s not just about their transactions that we’re after,” she explained.

“Nothing matters more than listening to the consumer. [Coach] is not trying to push designs on them. They design to what [the consumer] wants and needs,” Marie Driscoll, president of the Retail Marketing Society and an adjunct professor at Parsons, The New School, told Observer. She pointed to the 2023 launch of Coachtopia, a sustainability-focused sub-brand, as an example of Coach speaking to a young, environmentally minded customer base. 

Crevoiserat became Tapestry’s CEO in 2020 after serving as the company’s chief financial officer for a brief year. She initially stepped in on an interim basis following the abrupt ouster of Jide Zeitlin but ultimately earned the permanent role for her steady leadership. Before joining Tapestry, she held senior positions at retail giants including Abercrombie & Fitch and Kohl’s.

For many decades, Coach has been the go-to choice for a first luxury handbag or a milestone purchase as an aspirational symbol of success. That appeal faded in the 2010s as its designs stagnated and its branding lost clarity. Under creative director Stuart Vevers, who joined from Loewe and Mulberry, Coach has put on a fresh look in recent years. The company’s strategy now is centered on rekindling that sense of excitement of owning something special for the first time.

“Fashion has always been an emotional purchase. To that young customer, while they know that some of those big life moments may not be reachable in their near future, they want to enjoy the life that they are living, and they’re investing in the things that bring them joy,” Crevoiserat said. “We want to earn the right to be her first luxury bag purchase. It fosters brand love for a lifetime.”

Georgia Fearn contributed to the reporting of this story.