Coach Inc. Is Dead. Long Live Tapestry.

Coach Inc. Is Dead. Long Live Tapestry.
John Idol, the Kors chief executive, told that it was “the beginning of a strategy
that we have for building a luxury group that really is focused on international fashion brands.”
By rebranding Coach Inc., Mr. Luis is hoping to send a signal to potential targets in the $80 billion global premium fashion market
that “this is a home that is not limited to any category, channel or geography.”
While Mr. Luis declined to say how many more threads he anticipated adding to his particular tapestry, he did note
that one of the requirements for the new name was that it demonstrate inclusivity.
But in Coach’s case, the change also reflects what has become an escalating race to create the
first American Fashion Group — or, as Mr. Luis styles it, “the first New York Fashion Group.”
The name change, after all, follows Coach’s 2015 acquisition of the Stuart Weitzman shoe label for up to $574 million
and its purchase of Kate Spade for $2.4 billion in May.
Then he said, “We are not a group that believes there is a single country where products have to be designed or manufactured,” a reference to the insistence by European groups on the importance of origin —
that there is equity in “made in France” or “made in Italy.” Finally, Mr. Luis said Tapestry would include the results of each of its brands in its annual reports, as opposed to lumping them together into a single entity, as LVMH and Kering do with some of their brands.
To that end, the name was also intended to clarify the differences between not only Tapestry and Kors
but also Tapestry and potential European competitors like LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (the owner of brands like Vuitton, Dior, Givenchy and Fendi, and the world’s largest luxury group by sales), Kering (Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci, among others) and Richemont (Chloé, Alaïa, Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels).