James Franco on American style, teenage shop-lifting and Beat generation gods
The Coach HQ in New York is a glacial white edifice in the clouds – umpteen storeys up above Midtown with the Hudson in the background, it’s a temple of glossy surfaces, floor-to-ceiling glass and rigid Manhattan sleekness. That is until James Franco, admitting to a juvenile crime spree in his hometown of Palo Alto, breaks into an infectious giggle as he kicks back on the swamping sofa, Converses scuffed, hair tousled and wearing a quirky patterned jumper.
"My baseline always veers towards easy and laid-back. A sweater, a white T-shirt, jeans. I’m pretty low maintenance and I’ve always been happier in what I guess is a classic American style," he says in a slow Californian drawl. It’s no accident that he’s been chosen to front the campaign for the new Coach For Men fragrance, imagined as a latter-day James Dean by Steven Meisel in the campaign for this quintessentially American label.
Coach may be US-based, but today the brand pulses with new purpose thanks to British designer Stuart Vevers, who came on board in 2014 and created a ready-to-wear line where once there was only luggage, and the company is reportedly seeking to become an American LVMH, having bought handbag brand Kate Spade for $2.4 million in July. "I think what excited me most about Coach was that it’s American, and Stuart really celebrates that," says Franco. "He looks at eras in American history that coincidentally are also what I look to in my personal style, that sensibility of the 1950s."
The cologne comes with a bottle designed to mirror the slate greys and anthracites of New York, with the traditional coach-and-horses emblem embossed, marrying the past with the modernity of the city. Franco’s juvenile shoplifting was in fact driven by a teenage fascination with the seductive power of a grown-up scent. "We had a cologne-stealing ring that got busted when I was in junior high. We’d steal them from the local department store and wear them to school dances. It’s the first time that you’re really starting to thinking about girls and being intimate with people – you need to be close to someone to smell a fragrance – and colognes are a big part of that. There’s an intimacy there that’s intriguing."
The remit from Vevers for the scent was to capture the spirit of his particular Coach man, a beatnik with a penchant for whimsy, with references to 1960s psychedelia, Bruce Springsteen’s silhouettes and Midwest road trips. "I’ve been interested in this alternative American story with Coach, the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s and the birth of counter culture and youth culture," says Vevers. "The turnlock that is a key part of all the accessories, and appears on the top of the bottle, actually came from a classic 1950s sports car owned by original creative director Bonnie Cashin, so a sort of retro element is embedded in the codes of the house already."
The resulting blend of vetiver, suede and bergamot conjures a certain rustic charm, a deep, salty earthiness. It’s a nod to a romanticism that chimes with Franco’s own sense of style, as well as some of his defining films, such as his turn as Beat god Allen Ginsberg in 2010’s Howl and the adaptation of his book about Californian youth culture, Palo Alto. "When I think of what looks good, I tend to automatically go to Jack Kerouac. He was just effortless. It’s 1950s but you can wear it today. Those guys knew how to look good without trying," says Franco. As the actor stretches and spreads across the chair as if chilling on a Santa Monica sunlounger – it’s early on a drizzly June morning – the same could be said of him.
Coach For Men, from £29 for 40ml, coach.com
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