CRIS & COCO: A Love Story (Sort Of)

The Founders’ Journey

Once upon a meltdown, somewhere between a fashion shoot and a leather trade fair, the idea of CRIS & COCO was born—not with a bang, but with a mild existential crisis and a knockoff SAINT LAURENT.

Cris, German-born, Asia-bound, semi-recovered fashion photographer, had once launched a real and luxury accessories brand. YSLE (YSLE, old French for island) was its name. It had everything: Italian leather, minimalist logos, and a brooding mission statement. What it didn’t have was traction. Turns out, the road from mood board to Maison is paved with unpaid invoices and empty tote bags.

Birth of a Brand

Meanwhile, Coco—stylist, visual anarchist, and unintentional bag whisperer—was crafting handmade handbags in their post-9/11 Lower East Side apartment. Not as a branding exercise. As therapy. Out of boredom. Out of necessity. Cris, sensing a pulse in the dead economy, suggested selling them. It started on the street with a vendor license and a folding table. Thus began their first foray into “commerce.”

From New York to Asia

Fast forward through some hopeful seasons and heartbreaks: from a DIY studio in Greenpoint to a surreal sourcing trip in Guangzhou, where fake and fabulous coexisted like twins with different passports. They met Kiko in Shenzhen, a quietly brilliant fixer with access to the ungoogleable: the real-deal workshops behind luxury’s glossy facade.

Evolution into CRIS & COCO

That’s when the penny dropped. The question wasn’t: Can we build another luxury brand? It was: Why would we? Why not cut the BS, skip the busy factories, and sell what people can afford?

So they did.

Today, CRIS & COCO offers affordable, authentic quality luxury bags and accessories.