Quite a few brands are releasing products to celebrate Pride month throughout June, among them there's also Coach.
In its campaign, entitled "Pride Is Where You Find It," Bob the Drag Queen, "13 Reasons Why" star Miles Heizer, ballroom emcee Jack Mizrahi, pageant queen of HBO Max's "Legendary" Stasha Sanchez, singer-songwriter Rina Sawayama, and young people from Coach's eight-year nonprofit partner the Hetrick-Martin Institute (providing community, basic needs, health, education, and career services to thousands of LGBTQIA+ youth every year) explain where they find their Pride.
The campaign features the house's Coach Pride collection of bags, T-shirts, and footwear: some of the pieces feature Coach's signature pattern in a rainbow colour scheme.
But the collection also includes a quilted rainbow coloured stripe motif that could be a derivation and a development of Bonnie Cashin's original striped designs (Cashin designed collections for Coach from 1962).
As you may remember from a previous post, in the '60s the American designer lined her leather bags for Coach with a colourful fabric that represented a homage to Mexico rather than an appropriation.
In this way, Cashin added a playful twist to bags that from the outside looked formal and elegant. The rainbow stripes lining the bag represented indeed a whimsically joyous note.
Some of these original designs in various sizes and dimensions and featuring two kiss lock closure compartments lined in Cashin's signature striped canvas fabric, resurface every now and then at auctions or online.
In occasion of Pride month Coach reinvented the striped canvas as a quilted motif, but it also combined Cashin's Safari bag (View this photo) with her signature stripes reinterpreted as quilted sections.
As stated above, Cashin moved for her iconic lining from Mexico, so the designer wasn't really referencing the colours of the rainbow in these creations. Yet it is intriging to see how a basic and simple concept developed over 60 years ago can still be reinvented and can still be used to hint at joy, but also at inclusion and love. Guess that's possible only when a design is truly iconic and stands the test of time like Cashin's.
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