Nice find! I've never seen it either, but here is an article about the re-opening of the
Coach Flagship Store in NYC in Sept, 1999. It sounds like a large event and that they were making big changes!
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/08/...ch-expands-flagship-store-on-madison-ave.html
Commercial Real Estate; Coach Expands Flagship Store on Madison Ave.
By Mervyn Rothstein
Sept. 8, 1999, New York Times
As Coach broadens its product line to make the company a little less heavy into leather, it is also redesigning and more than doubling the size of its flagship store at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 57th Street.
The new three-level 6,000-square-foot showplace at 595 Madison, which will feature a very visible staircase just inside the 57th Street window, will replace Coach's old 2,600-square-foot store. The opening is Sept. 25.
''We're expanding into travel items and furniture and home furnishings -- trays, candles, throws, pillows -- and broadening our array of women's accessories into footwear and watches and eye wear,'' said Reed Krakoff, president-executive creative director for Coach. ''We're expanding all our existing categories, like our handbags, as well as adding new categories. This is our flagship store, and we wanted it to reflect everything the Coach brand is about today.''
To do that, Mr. Krakoff said, Coach decided to return to its roots. ''Coach started with offices and factory in a loft space on West 34th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues in New York City in the 1940's,'' he said, ''and we wanted to synthesize the characteristics of where we had come from and make them relevant to Coach today.''
Coach's offices are still there, much expanded; the manufacturing is done in many locations. Coach, which has 167 stores in the United States and 162 abroad, was acquired in 1985 by the Sara Lee Corporation.
The goal for the redesign, said S. Russell Groves, its architect, was to create ''an America in the 40's and 50's kind of ambiance, slightly industrial without being overly high tech.''
''We wanted to bring back the feeling of Coach's first factory,'' said Mr. Groves, who has designed high-fashion stores for Armani -- in Belle Harbor, Fla., and Toronto -- and department store floors for Takashimaya, at Fifth Avenue and 54th Street, including its Tea Box restaurant, its cosmetics floor and its luggage and travel area.
The old Madison Avenue store, he said, had two selling spaces, on the street and lower levels. ''We expanded into the second floor, into what had been part of the Robert Miller Gallery, and we wanted to make the customer understand that there was this additional new floor,'' he said. ''So we created a 40-foot-high space to insert the staircase, from the basement through the second floor.
''This all takes place on the window wall,'' he said, ''so as pedestrians walk down 57th Street, they can look down to the lower level and up to the second floor. And it makes them immediately aware of the size of the new store.''
The design, which is to be used as a prototype for Coach's other stores and department store boutiques, includes, as part of its loft look, poured concrete stairs, cast aluminum-and-steel banisters, brick walls, ebony-stained wood floors and ribbed glass shelving.
Mr. Krakoff would not disclose the rent for the new store, but brokers familiar with the neighborhood said that average annual rents in the immediate area were more than $600 a square foot, comparable to rents on Fifth Avenue in the 50's.
Alan Victor, an executive vice president of the Lansco Corporation, a retail brokerage company, said the expansion provided Coach with ''a wonderful showcase opportunity.''
''It's a very dominant corner,'' Mr. Victor said. ''In fact, there are very few corners like Madison and 57th in New York, corners that are going to give a retailer this kind of exposure. It's the crossroads of retail, and in many ways, it's as strong as Fifth Avenue.''
''The corner is the entryway to the fabulous high-end prestigious retailing on Madison, which is known all over the world,'' he said. ''Emporio Armani is right there. A few blocks up are DKNY and Calvin Klein. Hermes is expanding to Madison and 62d. Farther up is Ralph Lauren Polo. To name but a few. And there are the larger stores like Crate and Barrel that attract a lot of customers, bring a lot of pedestrians to the streets.''
In addition, Mr. Victor said, Coach's very visible second-floor presence, tying into the ground floor, ''is like a billboard.''
''The new store anchors the area,'' he said. ''It increases the stability. And it increases the prestige of Madison Avenue.''
A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 8, 1999, Section B, Page 10 of the National edition with the headline: Commercial Real Estate; Coach Expands Flagship Store on Madison Ave.
So here is this bag, I think it is probably authentic but may be from the 90's. Mainly I'm curious about its history if anyone has seen something like this before. Thanks much for your help!
