Keeping it in the family

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Sporting elegance: CEO Michel Lacoste believes that the brand has become synonymous with comfort and authenticity.

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Champion founder: the tennis court was the birthplace of Lacoste, with Rene Lacoste winning the Davis Cup in 1927.

It all starts with the father. This is 1927, and the following encounter results in a nickname, "The Alligator", given to him by the American media.

In between matches and tournaments, notorious tennis champion Rene Lacoste makes a bet with the captain of the French Davis Cup Team. The bet involves a suitcase made of alligator skin. Lacoste gets the leather prize if he is able to strike victory in one of the biggest matches of the season. With a reputation for never letting go of his ‘prey' on court, winning matches must have come naturally to Lacoste.

Whether he eventually got his leather goodies or not must have been quickly forgotten. That same year, along with his team, known as the ‘Musketeers', Lacoste helped snatch the Davis Cup from the Americans for the first time, and made it to the bigtime in the world of tennis. Victory followed victory, and the inspiration lived on in a brand: LACOSTE. Today the logo, now a crocodile, is recognised in over half of the countries of the world.

"At present, Lacoste means a little over 60 million crocodiles sold over a year," says Michel Lacoste, the youngest son of the founder, and the proud chairman and CEO of his father's retail empire. The numbers get even more staggering as he adds that two "little crocodiles" are sold each second around the globe.

"Our total turnover calculated at the wholesaler level is around US$2.2bn. Today we are really a lifestyle brand, with approximately 60% of our trade coming from clothing and fashion items, 20% from fragrances, 15% from shoes, and the remaining 5% spread over leather goods such as bags, belts, watches, sunglasses and a range of optical glasses," he says.

The question is: where did this all come from? Apparently, papa Lacoste didn't just spend his time wielding a tennis racket. In 1933, Rene Lacoste teamed up with what was France's biggest knitwear manufacturing company. Their collaboration gave birth to a company that makes logo-embroidered tennis shirts, originally designed by and for the champion for his own use on court. This was followed by the marketing of other tennis, golf and sailing shirts.

The act of having a crocodile emblem stitched on a shirt paved the way for a new trend: what is now considered normal and wide practice was unheard of back then. According to the company, that was the first time a brand name appeared on the outside of an article of clothing. This, however, wasn't the only way the company revolutionised the retail market.

"Our polo shirt, ‘The Polo Shirt'...was a completely new product. Before my father's time, people were playing tennis with normal cut and sawn shorts, which could become uncomfortable when it's too hot. Therefore he developed that cotton, big stitch, very stretchy type of product," explains Lacoste.
Given the enormous number of copycats reproducing the product, Lacoste justifiably points out that any other polo shirts spotted out on the streets are not anywhere close to the real deal.

"If it is a Lacoste, it is the original product. If you see anything else... well, it's just an imitation of the true polo we created," he says.

But what is a ‘true' polo shirt? According to the company, the first LACOSTE shirt was white, slightly shorter than other sporting shirts of the time, with a ribbed collar and short sleeves, made of light-knitted fabric. What differentiated it from other products was its comfort and marked solidity.

Since the industrial production of the first batch of shirts began in 1933, the brand has been growing steadily, with the sole interruption of its activity occurring during the Second World War. LACOSTE broke away from its confinement to the French market when it started exports to Italy in 1951, and the popularity of the original product led to the development of a new colour range.

The rest is fashion and retail history. A kids range followed as well as exports to the US, Spain, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Thailand, Russia and many other markets. Distribution licenses were acquired almost on a yearly basis. New items of clothing were added, and products such as tennis rackets, perfumes, sunglasses and optical frames, tennis and leisure shoes, watches and other accessories were created over time. And despite the numerous changes and redesign of its brand and products, the crocodile in LACOSTE remains its most distinct signature.

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