Coach history

By 1960, Cahn had taken notice of the distinctive properties of the leather used to make baseball gloves.

Richard Rose joined Coach in 1965, and he is responsible for making Coach a household name after putting the product in department stores across the United States and abroad.

In 1969, the company began to market items such as a structured bucket bag, which was produced for only one season, and a fringe "shimmy" bag.

In 1983 the Cahns purchased a 300-acre dairy farm in Vermont as a weekend diversion from their business in New York.

1985: 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 projected that the expansion would boost sales for 1986 to $25 million, a gain of 45 percent over the previous year.

In December 1987, Coach opened a new flagship store on Madison Avenue, in New York.

Coach solved its production problem by opening a plant near Miami, Florida, where its Lightweights collection was manufactured, in 1988.

As Coach continued its international push in 1989, opening a freestanding store on Sloane Street in London, company sales had quintupled to $100 million in a period of four years and the number of company stores had grown to 40.

In 1990, the company won a suit in federal court against several other companies, including Ann Taylor and Laura Leather Goods.

By May 1991, revenues had increased by more than a fifth over the previous year, and annual sales had reached $150 million.

Coach turned to its mail-order operations to test market its latest innovation in November 1992, when the company began to offer leather outerwear.

Rose, then executive VP of sales, mentored Frankfort, before retiring from his position in the company in 1995.

During the fiscal year ending in June 1996, Coach opened what it called its Pacific Rim flagship store in Waikiki, Hawaii, as a way to promote the brand to Asian tourists.

In 1997 the company entered into its first licensing agreement.

A revamp of the product line in 1999 aimed at reversing the sales slowdown, with an emphasis on attracting younger customers.

On June 1, 2000, the company changed its name to Coach, Inc.

For the fiscal year ending in June 2001, Coach had very encouraging news in its first annual report: net income had jumped 65.9 percent, to $64 million, and net sales had surged 12.2 percent, to $616.1 million.

In 2012 there are now 300 directly operated stores in the countries of Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia and an additional 500 stores within the United States and Canada.

During 2014, Coach also announced that Lew Frankfort would retire as executive chairman at the expiration of his term in November 2014.

In January 2015, Coach agreed to buy shoemaker Stuart Weitzman for up to $574 million in cash.

In July 2017, Coach purchased Kate Spade for $2.4 billion.

In September 2019, Coach named Jide J. Zeitlin, Chairman of the Board, as new CEO of Tapestry, Inc., replacing former Chief Executive Officer Victor Luis.