​Once, at the birth of punk rock, New Wave and street style, the Lower East Side was the trendiest neighborhood in the world. At Coach this season, it is again.

Proudly mining the subcultures or lower Manhattan, and clearly referencing Larry Clark’s cult flick “Kids”, the latest collection by Coach was an ode to those glory days, even if it also riffed on the new generation’s desire to just be themselves.
 
The show was staged uptown on Park Avenue in the Armory, but the huge red brick set painted on toile suggested a forgotten factory under the old West Side Highway. 

Coach’s cerebral creative director Stuart Vevers didn’t live through that golden era in New York – unlike the author of this review – but he sure has absorbed its attitude and style.

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The key to the collection was a great series of figure-hugging biker and bomber jackets – in distressed leather or felt, finished with hyper high collars. All paired with gigantic washed-out heritage jeans, patched and lovingly repaired. Leo Fitzpatrick on the prowl.
 
Vevers, the father of two young kids, added a playful element – with half the cast sporting mini teddy bears, furry rabbits and even woolly carrots. While Vevers new series of sturdy and functional Twin Pocket bags recalled an even earlier era – Bonnie Cashin in the 1960s. A very youthful set of models, many culled from street castings marching around a synth-driven life group – Nation of Language.

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One of the biggest differences between major runway shows in Europe and in U.S., is that neither London, nor Milan, nor Paris suffer from months of sub-freezing weather as New York does. And did again Monday.
 
The result is that in fall/winter collections always have lots of bulky padded clothing. Vevers’ solutions was ingenious – long but snug peacoats with funnel necks and multi-pockets; or floor-sweeping duffell coats or undertaker coats in leather or shearling. All of them had great defiance and insolence, which is what Vevers planned.
 
“I try to listen to the new generation all the time, and what I hear is they want the right to self-expression, in their lives and in their fashion,” concluded Stuart.