Coach x Disney x Keith Haring Launch Virtual Store

Via Coach’s website, visitors follow a set path through five bright, museum-like rooms. These play to Haring’s famously high-energy works, emblematic of 1980s New York’s art and nightlife scene, and the enduring influence of Disney on his oeuvre (Haring apparently even considered becoming a cartoonist, after absorbing the work of pop cultural giants Disney and Dr. Seuss).

Firstly, on entering a virtual lobby, visitors watch a welcome video featuring US brand ambassador model Kaia Gerber before meandering through interactive rooms (they can use their mouse to turn 360°). Each room displays shoppable items from the collection, including bags, sweatshirts and jackets featuring Haring’s iconic Mickey Mouse illustrations. Clicking on products opens a description and link to the item on Coach’s main e-commerce site.

In a New-York-style subway station housing a large Mickey Mouse statue, visitors can click to overlay the entire scene with Haring’s patterns (there are 10 designs to cycle through). The journey ends in a gift shop, with more Coach products, a unique-to-the-concept Mickey ears Instagram filter, an augmented reality model of Mickey Mouse, and a vinyl record that opens a custom Spotify playlist.

The concept – which exemplifies the growing breed of more compelling, desktop-accessible online brand experiences charted in Virtual Flagships – dovetails with a set of physical pop-ups launched by Coach in December 2020 across Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. Featuring the same visual motifs as their online counterparts, customers scanned a QR code to activate the Mickey Instagram filter, posting selfies of themselves tagged #MickeyxHaringxCoach for the chance to win items from the collection.

For more on the rising value of social-media-infused stores, see Phygi-Social Clubhouses in Brand Spaces: 10 Trends & Opportunities, 21/22.