Current Location:

Coach, Inc.
516 West 34th Street
New York, New York 10001

The company history can be found on this web site: Funding Universe

http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Coach-Inc-Company-History.html

For our purposes, we quote the timeline of events form the web page.

1941: The company is founded as a family-run workshop, making small leather goods in Manhattan.
1946: Miles Cahn joins the company.
1950: Cahn begins running the factory for its owners.
1960: The Coach brand of sturdy cowhide purses is introduced and becomes the company's signature, luxury, trademark.
1961: Cahn and his wife, Lillian, buy out the factory's owners.
Late 1970s/Early 1980s: Company begins a mail-order business and opens its first specialty stores.
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.
1988: The company begins international push, opening boutiques in England and Japan.
1989: Sales reach $100 million, five times the level of 1985.
1992: The product line is expanded to include outerwear and luggage.
1997: The company enters into its first licensing agreement, a deal with Movado Group for a line of Coach watches.
1999: The company enters the e-commerce realm with the launch of coach.com.\\ 2000: Sara Lee sells 17 percent of the newly named Coach, Inc. to the public through an IPO.\\ 2001: Sara Lee spins off its remaining interest in Coach to Sara Lee shareholders.

The 1960's

"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 company's entry into the field of classic, long-lasting, luxury women's handbags that Coach would come to define."

From Funding Universe at
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Coach-Inc-Company-History.html

1985 Coach Ad

Remember Lillian Cahn, the cofounder and creator of Coach Handbags!

Hear the Nation Public Radio story

See the NPR story

Categories: Makers