Coach

"Classic American style"--for 60 years, these words have defined the character and spirit of the Coach brand. Today more than ever, Coach embodies "classic American style"--now across a broad and modern product offering of lifestyle accessories in a number of distinctive categories, styles and fabrications. As the brand has grown and evolved, so has the company: from manufacturing to marketing driven; and from a small family business based in a New York loft to a publicly traded company with worldwide sales of $600 million in fiscal 2001. At Coach, the brand is at the core of the company's vision and strategy. The values of the brand--customer satisfaction, integrity, innovation and collaboration--are the reasons Coach's people come to work each morning. The strength of the Coach brand is, ultimately, what makes Coach the company it is today. The Coach brand of sturdy cowhide purses is introduced and becomes the company's signature, luxury, trademark. Late 1970s/Early 1980s:[fsps 7]Company begins a mail-order business and opens its first specialty stores. The Cahns sell Coach to Sara Lee Corporation for about $30 million; Sara Lee begins expanding Coach's product line and its channels of distribution. The company enters into its first licensing agreement, a deal with Movado Group for a line of Coach watches. Sara Lee sells 17 percent of the newly named Coach, Inc. to the public through an IPO. Sara Lee spins off its remaining interest in Coach to Sara Lee shareholders. Coach, Inc. is a designer, producer, and marketer of a prestige line of handbags, briefcases, luggage, and accessories. The company made its reputation selling sturdy leather purses in unchanging, traditional, classic styles, and it remains one of the best-known leather brands in the United States and has a growing reputation overseas. In addition to its main product line, the company offers Coach brand watches, footwear, and home and office furniture through agreements with licensing partners. Nearly two-thirds of company sales are derived from direct-to-consumer channels. These include about 190 Coach stores in the United States--of these, approximately 120 are retail stores and the remainder are factory outlets--direct mail catalogs, and an online store. There are also 175 Coach locations outside the United States, in 18 countries. The company's indirect channels include the wholesaling of Coach brand products to approximately 1,400 department and specialty store locations in the United States. Formed in 1941, Coach was family owned and operated until 1985, when Sara Lee Corporation purchased the firm. Coach remained a subsidiary of Sara Lee until 2001, when the firm regained its independence via a spinoff. Coach was founded in 1941 as a family-run workshop based in a loft on the edge of Manhattan's garment district. The company started with just six leather workers who made small leather goods, primarily wallets and billfolds, by hand. In 1946, Miles Cahn, a lifelong New Yorker, came to work for the company. By 1950, he was running the factory for its owners. The company's employees, members of Local 1 of the Pocketbook and Novelty Workers Union, continued to manufacture billfolds throughout the 1950s, producing small profits for the small concern. By 1960, Cahn had taken notice of the distinctive properties of the leather used to make baseball gloves. With wear and abrasion, the leather in a glove became soft and supple. Following this model, Cahn devised a way of processing leather to make it strong, soft, flexible, and deep-toned in color, as it absorbed dye well. At his wife Lillian's suggestion, a number of women's handbags were designed to supplement the factory's low-margin wallet production. The purses, given the brand name Coach, were made of sturdy cowhide, in which the grain of the leather could still be seen, instead of the thin leather pasted over cardboard that was used for most women's handbags at the time. This innovation marked the