“I think there’s something really emotional and nostalgic about souvenir culture,” says Coach creative director Stuart Vevers, speaking to us about the brand’s new season collaboration with cult brand Brain Dead, unveiled last month in a fantasy theme park-inspired set in New York’s Meatpacking District. “Collecting objects from places, concerts, theme parks, moments in your life – things that feel personal, imperfect, slightly strange sometimes.” That sentiment underpins the collab, which is guided by the notion of an imagined amusement park filled with whimsy, nostalgia and collectable treasures. Spanning ready-to-wear, leather goods, footwear and accessories, the range explores themes of personalisation and collectability, drawing on Tokyo street style, souvenir culture and the kind of quirky merchandise you’d win at theme park stalls. Six playful graphic characters are born from lucid dreaming (alongside Brain Dead’s signature logohead), while badges, patches, crocheted charms and tattoo-inspired stitching reinforce the collection’s handcrafted, keepsake spirit. Below, Vevers takes us through the collaboration.

Alex James Taylor: I love the idea of “merchandise from a fictional amusement park” – can you tell us about where this idea came from and how you wanted to translate it into the collection?
Stuart Vevers: We became interested in the idea of building merchandise for a place that doesn’t actually exist, but still feels familiar emotionally. The fictional amusement park gave us this amazing framework to create a whole world around the collection. It allowed us to approach Coach through a more playful and disruptive lens, using mascots, graphics, charms, patches, and objects that felt collected over time. Almost like memories from a weird and wonderful place.

Once the six mascots came into the process, the world became much more alive. They started influencing everything, from the graphics to the palette to the energy of the runway itself. There’s something expressive and a little chaotic about them that I really love. They don’t feel over-designed. They feel instinctive and human.

AJT: Brain Dead is loved for its subcultural approach, taking influence from DIY culture, underground music, and skateboarding – how does this speak to what you’re doing at Coach, and why did the collaboration excite you so much?
SV: What I’ve always loved about Brain Dead is that it genuinely feels connected to real communities and creative culture. It doesn’t feel overly calculated. There’s humour to it, experimentation, contradiction, and a real sense of individuality. A lot of what inspires me at Coach comes from youth culture and from people making things their own. That spirit of customisation, instinctive styling, collecting, remixing references, and expressing identity through what you wear. So collaborating with Kyle [Ng, Brain Dead founder and creative director]  felt very natural, creatively, because we were already interested in similar ideas, just through different lenses.

I also loved the tension of bringing that more underground and offbeat energy into the Coach world. It created something unexpected. The collaboration doesn’t feel too polished or too controlled, which was important to us. Even the 80-second flash runway (models walked the collection during the launch, taking exactly 80 seconds in all) had this spontaneous energy to it. It felt more like an interruption or a live moment than a traditional fashion show, and that spirit really reflects the collection itself.

“What I’ve always loved about Brain Dead is that it genuinely feels connected to real communities and creative culture.”

“I also loved the tension of bringing that more underground and offbeat energy into the Coach world. It created something unexpected.”

AJT: What are your favourite pieces or details from the collaboration?
SV: For me, the mascots are probably the heart of the whole project. I love how expressive and odd they are. They became these characters that carried the emotional tone of the collection and showed up everywhere, across the bags, ready-to-wear, charms, patches, and graphics. I also really loved working on the idea of personalisation throughout the collection. The details feel almost collected rather than traditionally designed. Like souvenirs picked up over time. That layering of charms, graphics, and objects made everything feel more personal and lived in.

And honestly, bringing the whole thing to life through the amusement park event and the 80-second runway was one of the most fun parts. There was something exciting about creating this immersive world that people could step into very briefly and experience almost like a flash of energy. It felt playful, disruptive, and very alive.