Tapestry, the parent company of Coach and Kate Spade New York, is exploring how generative AI can reshape the entire lifecycle of fashion — from first sketch to final sale. Leading that charge is J.J. Camara, Senior Director of Digital Product Creation at Tapestry, who sees Adobe Firefly Custom Models as a way to scale innovation without losing the artistry and individuality that define Tapestry’s iconic brands.

After proving the potential with Coach, Camara and her team are turning to Kate Spade to experiment, learn, and expand the vision, using AI as a creative partner for rapid ideation while ensuring designers remain firmly in control of the process.

To support that vision, Tapestry is leaning into the Adobe ecosystem, with Firefly Custom Models becoming the spark for creative exploration, helping Kate Spade designers generate on-brand concepts faster than ever. Adobe Substance 3D allows the team to extend those ideas into lifelike digital twins for production and merchandising. And Adobe Express has introduced new self-serve workflows, enabling teams across Tapestry to create on-brand content independently. Together, these tools are laying the foundation for Tapestry’s connected, future-ready content supply chain, where creative assets move seamlessly from concept to campaign, and design, marketing, and retail storytelling happen in parallel.

Creating at speed.

Kate Spade New York has always had a distinctive design language — playful, polished, and unmistakably optimistic, and that colorful, witty take on luxury is evolving for a new generation. “We’re rethinking the brand to connect with Gen Z while staying true to our roots,” says Gurashish Kaur, handbag and accessories designer for Kate Spade. “That means keeping the joy and color but modernizing how we design.”

Now, with Firefly Custom Models, that identity is built right into the creative process. By testing and training Firefly Custom Models on Kate Spade’s unique patterns, textures, and archival details, designers can generate lifelike concepts that already feel on brand. Instead of starting every fashion season from a blank page — and spending weeks on hand-drawn sketches, handoffs, and approvals — the team can explore new colorways, materials, and variations of classic silhouettes in minutes.

“The quick ideation from Firefly offers more lifelike digital assets than our current process and makes it easier for partners in product development, merchandising, and marketing to visualize our ideas,” Kaur says.

Those realistic renderings make collaboration faster and more fluid. Marketing can react earlier, and product teams can refine designs before committing to a physical prototype. What once took weeks of back-and-forth now happens in days.

As Camara puts it: “AI isn’t driving. It’s helping us navigate — getting us there faster.”

Turning concepts into craft.

Once ideas take shape, Lissette Siesholtz, Senior Director of Leather Goods Technical Design at Kate Spade, and her team turn them into production-ready assets, and partner with Tapestry’s Digital Product Creation group to visualize designs in Substance 3D.

“3D bridges the communication gap between product developers, designers, manufacturers, and merchandisers by providing early visibility when co-creating products across the globe,” Camara says. Demand for “digital twins,” high-fidelity, 3D digital representations of physical products, has grown exponentially throughout the entire organization.

With Substance, the team can turn early ideas into 3D models that look like the real thing, helping them make faster, more confident decisions. The Digital Product Creation team is also exploring how these virtual assets could one day move directly into ecommerce and marketing workflows, further shortening the path from concept to consumer. “We’re building toward a world where every style, material, and color has a digital twin,” Camara says. “That’s how we scale.” Using these upgraded assets, the team is also exploring Substance 3D Stager to quickly create showroom scenes for merchandising and assortment planning.

Extending reach and impact.

If Substance 3D brings products to life in pixels, Adobe Express helps those stories come alive in the real world.

Led by Brandon Keeney, Senior Manager of Digital Product Creation, Tapestry rolled out Adobe Express beyond the design floor. Now, more than 100 employees across communications, legal, finance, HR and beyond are learning to use shared brand kits and templates, freeing up design teams while ensuring every asset stays perfectly on-brand. “Adobe Express has been a game-changer,” Keeney says. “It’s made creativity accessible to everyone, not just designers.”

Tapestry is exploring how Adobe Express could drive timely storytelling across teams. For example, store associates could cut a TikTok to spotlight a new bag. Communications teams could tweak graphics for different markets, and social teams could create new posts using approved clips and images — all while staying perfectly on brand.

And because all assets live within Tapestry’s Adobe AI-powered content supply chain, every creative output is connected, compliant, and ready to scale. It’s creativity with guardrails — where innovation meets integrity.

“In my career, I’ve never worked with marketing and selling as much as I have in the last two years,” says Camara. Her team now shares a floor and works alongside the workshop and atelier. Team silos are a thing of the past with designers, craftspeople, and partners sitting shoulder to shoulder so assets flow from concept to in-store without friction.

From craftsmanship to connection.

Kate Spade is working toward a more agile and connected workflow, built on speed, quality, and collaboration.

“Adobe tools are essential in our ‘create, make, sell’ ecosystem,” Camara says. “They can help us produce concepts quickly and keep them on brand, which could support more effective selling.”

Looking ahead, Tapestry and Kate Spade New York are exploring Adobe Firefly Services, which automate how creative assets flow into marketing and retail channels, turning the vision of a fully digital product lifecycle and content at scale into reality. For Camara, that future still comes down to artistry. “At the end of the day, we’ll always be rooted in craftsmanship,” she says. “We’re just using smarter tools to bring it to life faster, and in more creative ways than ever.”

Kate Spade is hosting two sessions at Adobe MAX, revealing the secrets to their success with 3D innovation and how Adobe Firefly Custom Models transformed their workflows. Learn more here:

Style on the Fast-Track: Kate Spade’s Custom Model Makeover

From Sketch to Storefront: 3D Innovation at Kate Spade

Delivering Real Value with AI: Where to Start

Hannah C. Elsakr, Vice President of GenAI New Business Ventures at Adobe, leads innovation where creativity meets intelligence and builds transformative new businesses. Hannah previously led Corporate Development and served as Chief of Staff to Adobe’s CEO. She is also President of the Adobe Foundation. Her career includes leadership roles at eBay, Del Monte, Avon, McKinsey, and J.P. Morgan. Hannah holds degrees from MIT and Harvard Business School.

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