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Coach, the maker of luxury handbags and other sundry accessories, has been having a rough year. Poor sales prompted a leadership shuffle in July, and after a particularly bad earnings report Tuesday, the stock took its biggest dive in years. Which is odd, because the luxury market has been doing really well overall, fed by a global elite with assets that seem to have fully recovered from the recessionary dumps. So what's the problem? Part of it is certainly hard-charging competition from newer brands, like Kate Spade and Michael Kors, that appeal to a younger audience. For them, Coach is their rich auntie's label, more 5th Avenue than Mission District. But the bigger problem may have been growing too fast in the first place. Coach, under pressure from investors to boost revenue, added line after line of merchandise and dozens of factory outlet stores over the past few years, fueling a dramatic run-up in earnings -- to the point where Coach isn't really Coach anymore. "If you're a luxury brand with outlet stores, maybe you're not a luxury brand," mused Tim Hanson of Motley Fool Funds on a podcast Tuesday. "They took a growth-at-any-costs attitude that has done brand damage that they are paying for, but at the time that they were doing [it], it fielded stock price gains because it allowed them to put up very heady revenue numbers." It's a problem all luxury brands face, especially public ones: How can you both sell enough on a quarterly basis to make Wall Street happy while at the same time maintaining the aura of exclusivity that got you where you were in the first place? | 
