Last summer, Coach made its first official step into the world of gaming, teaming up with Roblox and ZEPETO on a collection of digital wearables for Fashion Klossette and Fashion Famous 2. Such was the success of that collaboration that the US brand is now back for another crack at the online gaming world – this time with The Sims in tow. “The Sims 4 felt like a natural next step because it’s such a personal, everyday space,” says Kimberely Wallengreen, vice president of marketing at Coach, in a conversation over email. “People don’t just visit The Sims – they live there.”

While Coach’s previous gaming efforts with Roblox and ZEPETO involved players exploring a pre-made, themed world, this Sims collab is all about “giving the keys to the brand to the player so they can express themselves without rules,” as Wallengreen explains. In other words, Coach’s items are directly integrated into the base game, so players can style their Sims exactly how they want, seamlessly incorporating the brand into their own online worlds. With nine different items and 65 colourway variations, players can build hundreds of looks, allowing Coach to become an integrated part of gameplay over a sustained period of time.

But what actual fashion is on offer in the Coach x Sims world? “We were very deliberate in selecting existing Coach pieces that feel wearable and rooted in everyday life,” Giovanni Zaccariello tells me, the senior vice president of global visual experience at Coach. Items like varsity jackets, t-shirts and ready-to-wear styles already popular with consumers will be featured in-game, in an attempt to appeal to Coach’s Gen Z audience. “Because The Sims centres on everyday life, we chose pieces that feel at home in that world,” continued Zaccariello, “including our signature Tabby and Brooklyn bags.” Not only will these Coach icons be wearable, but they will also be reimagined as decorative objects for the home, to reflect how players use fashion as part of their everyday storytelling. And if that wasn’t enough, a Coach Trunk allows players to unlock pre-styled outfits designed to trigger different moodlets for your Sim.

But of the Coach outfits in the game, Zaccariello was keen to point out that they were not “redesigning” them for a digital world, but instead “translating” them. “Tabby is the entryway into the brand for most Gen Z and we want to make sure that remains true in the virtual world as well,” he says. In the game, players can customise their Tabby bags in a way they might not be able to in the real world. For Zaccariello, this allows Coach to “create opportunities to think outside the box” and approach fashion in a creative way that isn’t just about consumption. Wallengreen backs this up too, adding that digital fashion spaces “remove many of the barriers that exist in the physical world when it comes to self-expression, including cost, permanence and expectation.”

For Coach, The Sims 4 was the perfect avenue to channel this kind of courageous self-expression, an important facet of the brand’s core values. Launched at the turn of the millenium, The Sims has been around for over a quarter-of-a-century, and offers players the freedom to project themselves into the gaming experience, rather than follow a pre-written script already set out. “The game is entirely driven by imagination, emotion and personal choice,” says Wallengreen. “From our perspective, providing a space to create, reinterpret, and evolve on your own terms makes it a natural environment for Coach to be part of.”