How do you mark your 70th birthday? Forget the pipe and slippers. If you're American leathergoods brand Coach, it's world's most talented photographers taking your photograph all over New York City, then heading over to Beijing for a big knees up, serenaded by Gwyneth Paltrow, no less.
When Reed Krakoff, Coach's executive creative director, wanted to celebrate the landmark, he looked at what the brand represented — diversity, he says — and chose a photography challenge to express that.
"One of the greatest strengths of the brand - you see it in the exhibition — is the broad range in attitudes of the Coach brand. There is so much for so many different people," said Krakoff on the sidelines of the Seven for Seventy exhibition in Beijing's 798 art district.
Krakoff challenged six international photographers, and himself (he has shot several Coach campaigns) to shoot an iconic Coach bag in its natural setting, New York City. The photographs were displayed in Tokyo and China as part of the brand's international celebration.
"We were thinking of a way to see the brand through other artists' eyes and we thought of photography to be a great medium," said Krakoff. "We asked great photographers from around the world, each whose aesthetic was quite different, to portray the Coach brand through combining the idea of New York City which is where Coach was born, and one iconic handbag."
That bag is the Lindsay from the Madison range, in the company's signature vermillion (it's sold out in that colour in the UAE, but is available in black and brown, for Dh2,200).
"What was fortunate and amazing because we didn't guide them in any way, was that each one was so different; one was romantic, one is quite urban, another is playful, another is colourful. What's nice is they are all unique but what unifies them is that they are all a unique aspect of the Coach brand."
Some of the images show Coach in quite a different light from its classy, playful American sportswear style — Chinese photographer Chen Man's images in particular stood out, inspired as she was by Americana such as Spider-Man and the Statue of Liberty. Her stylised, cartoonish images take Coach out of its comfort zone, with brilliant effect. She told the crowd of international press and Chinese VIPs — including actress Fan Bing Bing — at the exhibition launch that she was the only one of the seven photographers never to have visited New York, and thus had to interpret it through the images of the city accessible from China. Japanese photographer Mika Ninagawa, also present, shot vibrant, colourful images of NYC, while Steven Sebring filmed a romantic run through the city, and presented stills from the film, as well as the vintage dress and ballet shoes worn by the model as she carried the Linsday through Central Park.
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