Skip to main content

Aggregator

Ann Berry on the Importance of Learning AI

Bloomberg Daybreak
6 days 22 hours ago
Barry speaks with Ann Berry, founder and managing partner of Threadneedle. They discuss her path from Goldman Sachs M&A and private equity to running a hospitality services company through the pandemic. They also discuss Ann's early-stage bets on AI and deepfake detection, and surveying the expanding IPO landscape. (Source: Bloomberg)

Gen Z is obsessed with this once-forgotten handbag brand, and sales are soaring

Fast Company
6 days 22 hours ago

Legacy leather goods brand Coach has won over Gen Z, and it’s already translating into results.

Tapestry, the parent company of both Coach and Kate Spade, just released its fiscal 2027 first-quarter results alongside a full-year outlook. The company revealed it welcomed 2.6 million new consumers during the quarter, with Gen Zers making up 35% of that group.

These first-time customers helped Tapestry grow 12% in adjusted revenue this quarter and beat estimates.

But the brands are not pulling equally, with Coach carrying the load. While Coach grew 16% on a constant-currency basis, Kate Spade’s sales fell 10% from the year before. Revenue gains at Coach also came with higher prices, with the average price for handbags rising by low double-digit percentages as the number of bags sold also increased slightly.

The company credits its success to Gen Z, a growing consumer base with rising income that aligns perfectly with its “Amplify” growth strategy.

“Our Amplify strategy continues to bring new consumers to our brands through our distinctive combination of creativity, craftsmanship, and value,” Tapestry CEO Joanne Crevoiserat said in the earnings report. “Building on this outperformance, we are raising our full-year outlook, reflecting our confidence in the durability of our growth.”

The brand has caught the attention of young shoppers by partnering with culturally relevant figures, including popular American actress Elle Fanning, South African singer Tyla, and South Korean rapper Jeon So-yeon.

The strategy has translated to social media, with Gen Z consumers making or turning to videos featuring Coach items and discussing their handbags and leather goods.

For instance, in one TikTok video with 472,000 views, content creator Amanda Dawson Verner endorsed the brand by showing off her collection of Coach handbags. “For the price point on these, it feels like a high-end luxury bag,” she said in the video captioned “the ultimate cool girl bag.”

Like Verner, many users praised the quality and price of Coach bags, with users flooding comment sections for advice on what models and sizes to get.

Those with a connection to the brand also added to the buzz, with several sales associates—such as content creators Ava Grace Laurie and Becca Bonney—going viral for showing off their favorite products and answering commenters’ questions while at work.

“Our first quarter marked a powerful start to the year, with revenue, margin, and earnings growth ahead of expectations and strength around the world,” Crevoiserat said. “Behind these results are advantages that compound over time, including our deep consumer understanding, data-driven approach, and global scale.”

Air holes turn silicon wafers into flat ultraviolet focusing mirrors for compact optics

Phys.org
6 days 22 hours ago
Traditional lenses and mirrors focus light using curved surfaces. Metasurfaces can achieve similar functions with a flat layer of nanoscale structures that locally control the phase of light. Extending these flat optics into the ultraviolet could support compact systems for high-resolution imaging, spectroscopy, and sensing, but it introduces a fundamental materials problem: many of the materials used to make metasurfaces strongly absorb UV light.