In our long-running series "How I'm Making It," we talk to people making a living in the fashion and beauty industries about how they broke in and found success.
By the time Stuart Vevers landed at Coach, he'd already made a name for himself as a creative director, having led a turnaround at Mulberry from 2004 to 2007 and at Loewe from 2017 to 2013. He cut his teeth in the accessories departments of some of the most iconic brands in the industry — Calvin Klein in the '90s, Bottega Veneta, Givenchy and Marc Jacobs' Louis Vuitton — before returning to his first love, women's ready-to-wear. Really, though, his story begins in northern England, where he spent his adolescence as a tall teen making clothes for himself based on what he'd see in magazines to go clubbing.
Vevers credits many of his achievements to the initial opportunity to explore and nurture his love of fashion at university. Many of the most valuable lessons, he says, happened outside of the classroom: moving to London on his own, meeting people at school and in the club, feeling challenged by a new environment and finding his way as a young adult in a city. That's why the work Coach does to support education equity feels so personal to him.
Last week, the brand announced that, through its foundation, it would support 5,000 students with scholarships through 2025, partnering with various non-profits around the globe to provide people — and especially those from underrepresented communities — with resources and mentorship that will allow them to pursue higher education. It's Coach's latest effort under the Dream It Real umbrella, launched in 2018, which also has a scholarship for students at HBCUs with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a partnership with the China Youth Development Foundation and more initiatives with a range of organizations working in this space.
Fashionista spoke with Vevers to learn about the role his education played in shaping his point of view as a designer and a human, the "specific" way he got his first job in the industry, what drives him as a designer and more. Read on for the highlights of our conversation.
Where does your interest in fashion come from? When did you know that you wanted to try to make a career out of it?
I grew up in the north of England, and both of my parents left school at 15. I didn't really have people in my life who I could learn about career or university [from]. I definitely came to fashion through nightclubs. My grandmother actually was really good on a sewing machine. I was always curious when she was making things — she would make things for amateur dramatics, for herself or my mom.
I was a little tall, so I could get into a nightclub from around 15 — I know that's not something you're supposed to do, but I could. I didn't have any money, and I would look at magazines and make things for myself. They were very shoddy, but it was fun. It was creative. I started to enjoy it. Art was always my strongest subject. I was always drawing, painting, making things. But I never thought that I'd use creativity as a career. I just didn't have the references in my vault. So it was nightclubbing. Once I started to make outfits, it was then where I started to research more about the designers. And then I started thinking, well, maybe this is something I could do.
Did you seek out fashion design as a field of study when you got to university?
I did a foundation course, which in the U.K., is a one-year course, which you usually do close to your hometown. You didn't, at that point, get grants and things if you went outside of your local areas. And it's multidisciplinary, but it was a design foundation course. It's quite short, and you try graphic design, applied arts, fine arts — fashion was one of the things. I knew I loved fashion before that, but when I did that, I was like, 'Okay, that's what I'd love to do.' And so that's when I applied to go to university.
In the U.K., you specialize right from the beginning. You start in that. When I said I want to study fashion, my father was maybe angry with me. I think he saw the opportunity he'd not had himself — that I had this opportunity, that my grades were good enough that I could go to a university. He was worried I was throwing everything, all that opportunity, away by studying something where he couldn't see a career at the end of it. Fortunately, I did what I wanted to do. We didn't agree for a while, but once he saw my passion for it, he was very quickly supportive. We laugh about it now.
Coach just announced a big investment in scholarships. What did fashion school give you? What skills that you use now that you attribute to your education? How did it shape you into the designer that you are today?
It's such a life-changing experience. For me, it was moving away from home, to London. As much as the education itself was so fantastic — I went to University of Westminster, it was an amazing course — it was the people who I met through that, the people who gave lectures, people like my tutors... They taught me skills and they educated me, but they also helped introduce me to how you go about thinking about your career, what different paths there are to go down. Then, of course, I continued going clubbing. I met people socially who would go on to start magazines... As much as you're learning, it's also about creating your network, [meeting] the people who are going to support each other in the future. So, it's everything around that.
I mean, getting the balance right — it's not always easy, and I failed at times. At one point, I was working in a bar five nights a week, going out and trying to do schoolwork. Again, it's just the things you learn as you start to become an adult, about how many things you can do. I would say, I was doing too much, but at the same time, I was taking as many opportunities as I could. And I think that's what it comes down to: Learn as much as you can during the day, but also go out and meet people. It's everything combined that helps you find out who you are, ultimately.
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