If the devil does wear Prada, she now also sips an iced Americano beneath a ceiling painted in pistachio green. Once upon a time, buying into luxury meant just that—buying. An ‘it’ bag, the latest watch, perhaps a necklace with a five-figure price tag and a sales assistant who knew exactly when to hover. Today, the buy-in looks a little different. You don’t need a receipt to belong. You just need to know where to sit, sip, and stay awhile.
From Milan to Mayfair and Orchard Road to Rodeo Drive, fashion is no longer just dressing us—it’s dining us, too. Sometimes literally, often emotionally, and always luxuriously. Louis Vuitton wants you to enjoy your flat white with a monogrammed biscotti. Audemars Piguet believes a finely tuned watch pairs best with fine dining. Dior has cafés. Even Jacquemus sold plates at one point.
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Food and beverage—once an afterthought or, at best, a photo op—is now the main character. The goal? To extend the brand experience beyond the product and into your Friday night dinner plans, your coffee run, or your next date night.
It’s a croissant-scented power move to democratise the brand without ever discounting it. You may not be able to afford the five-figure watch (yet), but for the price of a Gula Melaka pain suisse (available at AP House Singapore), you can bask in the same designer halo. And Southeast Asia, ever the rising star in the global luxury landscape, is eating it up. Sometimes quite literally, one designer dessert at a time.
The Coach Bar
Enter The Coach Bar, Singapore’s latest entry in the fashion-meets-food boom. Housed inside the Coach Playhouse along Keong Saik Road, this cocktail den is the brand’s third hospitality concept worldwide—and its most compelling yet. Think cassette tapes, caviar-topped sundaes, and martinis priced at a dangerously approachable $12.
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The New York label has transformed its shophouse space—already part retail, part café—into a moody, magnetic night haunt with just enough nostalgia to feel cool, not kitsch. Expect 70s soul and 90s hip-hop on rotation. A citrus ice cube stamped with the Coach “C”. And yes, a Tabby Disco Tea that’s begging to be Instagrammed.
The food? Elevated American comfort. Grilled cheese sandwiches with a wink. Pastrami poppers with just the right amount of swagger. It’s all cheeky, curated, and intentionally accessible.
The Secret Sauce
These spaces aren’t just about food. They’re about feeling. About cultivating cultural cachet and curating desire in real time. A store is a transaction. A martini moment is a memory. And in a landscape where loyalty is increasingly experiential, brands are betting that what we taste might just tether us more deeply than what we wear.
In London, Prada’s pistachio-clad café at Harrods turns pastries into fashion ephemera. In Bangkok, Louis Vuitton’s SEE LV exhibition closed with a café packed daily with fans who came for the iced lattes and stayed for the prestige. In Kuala Lumpur, Dior Café continues to draw queues longer than its handbag waitlist. And now, in Singapore, The Coach Bar is setting a new local standard: Fashionable, fun, and just far enough off the beaten track to feel insider.
Luxury F&B is not a gimmick. It’s a soft-power strategy—one that blurs the lines between retail and ritual, indulgence and identity. Because maybe you didn’t buy the bag. But you took the photo. You drank the cocktail. You felt like you were part of it. And in fashion, that’s the secret sauce.