A Foreign Affair
Kristen Coates
Vintage trench coats on rolling rack | 2025
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There’s something cinematic about a trench coat.
The way it holds memory. Movement. Mystery.
In A Foreign Affair, Kristen Coates assembles a rack of vintage trenches sourced from travels, collections, and corners of curiosity. Each coat stands on its own, a singular object with a past. But together, they become something more: a wardrobe of imagined stories, a chorus of departures and arrivals, a nod to travel as both fashion and feeling.
Presented as part of Lost in Paradise, the installation acts as both artwork and invitation. Are these coats worn by past lovers or future selves? Are they artifacts, or costumes? The viewer is left to decide.
There is no styling here, no performative placement, only selection, intention, and trust in the viewer’s imagination.
“I’ve always believed in the power of a garment to transform mood, perspective, posture,” Coates says. “This collection isn’t about the clothes, really. It’s about the characters they awaken.”
Each vintage coat is available for individual purchase (price determined by quality and brand), but the installation remains a collective gesture, one that speaks to anonymity, allure, and the soft art of reinvention. As each coat finds a new home, the work evolves, until eventually, there is nothing left. A final nod to the mysterious transience of the trench coat itself
