Lacoste

Lacoste S.A. is a French designer sports fashion company. It was founded in 1933 by tennis player René Lacoste and entrepreneur André Gillier. The company sells clothing, footwear, sportswear, eyewear, leather goods, perfume, towels, and watches.

People all around the world know Lacoste because of its special green crocodile logo. In November 2012, the company was bought by a Swiss family group called Maus Frères.

History

In 1923, a journalist from Boston started calling young tennis star René Lacoste "the Crocodile" because of his strong play and a funny bet he made with his team captain Allan Muhr.

Later, in 1927, a friend gave Lacoste a drawing of a crocodile, and Lacoste sewed it onto his tennis shirt. In 1933, Lacoste and a business partner named André Gillier began selling clothes with the crocodile logo. They made a special tennis shirt that became very famous and was one of the first clothes with a brand logo on it.

In the 1950s, a company called Izod sold Lacoste clothes in the United States, but Lacoste took back control in 1993. Another company, Le Tigre, tried to compete with Lacoste by using a tiger instead of a crocodile.

Creative direction

In 2001, French designer Christophe Lemaire joined Lacoste to give the brand a more modern and stylish look. By 2005, Lacoste was selling almost 50 million products in over 110 countries. Famous tennis players like Andy Roddick, John Isner, Richard Gasquet, and Stanislas Wawrinka helped make the brand more well-known. Lacoste also started appearing in golf events, with players like José María Olazábal and Colin Montgomerie wearing Lacoste shirts.

Lacoste worked with many companies to create different products. In 2007, Lacoste launched its own online store for customers in the United States. In 2009, actor Hayden Christensen became the face of a new men’s fragrance.

In 2010, Felipe Oliveira Baptista took over as the creative director. That same year, Lacoste began making sunglasses and started its first fashion jewelry line. In 2012, a Swiss family group bought Lacoste. In 2017, tennis star Novak Djokovic became a brand ambassador. Lacoste also worked with Supreme to create special clothing collections.

From 2018 to 2023, Louise Trotter was the creative director. In 2018, Lacoste partnered with the Pentland Group for footwear. By late 2022, Lacoste signed a new deal for fragrances with Interparfums.

In 2023, Pelagia Kolotouros became the new creative director. Under CEO Thierry Guibert, Lacoste changed how it sold products, focusing more on its own stores. The brand also brought back control of some product lines and started showing its collections at Paris Fashion Week again in 2024. In 2024, Lacoste made a deal with Haddad Brands to create kids’ clothing. That year, the brand also announced a new fragrance called Lacoste Original. In August 2025, Lacoste temporarily changed its famous crocodile logo to a “GOAT” logo to honor Novak Djokovic before the US Open.

Brand management

In the early 1950s, Bernard Lacoste worked with David Crystal, who owned Izod, to make Izod Lacoste clothing. These shirts became very popular with teenagers in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the company behind Izod had a lot of debt, so they sold their part of Lacoste to the French owners.

Starting in 2000, Lacoste brought back its own brand name and logo under a new designer, Christophe Lemaire. Today, Lacoste is once again a top brand.

Lacoste had some problems with other companies using similar crocodile logos. They had disagreements with a company in Hong Kong called Crocodile Garments and another in Singapore called Crocodile International. These disputes were settled, and the logos were changed to look different from each other. The Supreme Court of the Philippines also ruled that the logos were not confusingly similar, supporting free market free market rules.

Sponsorships

Tennis

Associations and Events

Lacoste works with big tennis events like the Paris Masters, Roland-Garros, and the Miami Open.

Professional Players

Many famous tennis players wear Lacoste clothes, such as Marc Polmans from Australia, Grigor Dimitrov from Bulgaria, and players from Spain like Roberto Bautista Agut, Guillermo Garcia Lopez, and Albert Ramos-Viñolas. French players like Alizé Cornet, Fiona Ferro, Pierre-Hugues Herbert, Ugo Humbert, Nicolas Mahut, Benoît Paire, Arthur Rinderknech, and Arthur Fils also support the brand. Other players include Hyeon Chung from South Korea, Marius Copil from Romania, Daniil Medvedev and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Elena Vesnina from Russia, Novak Djokovic and Filip Krajinović from Serbia, Jil Teichmann from Switzerland, players from Chinese Taipei like Latisha Chan and Chan Hao-ching, Pablo Cuevas from Uruguay, and Denis Kudla and Bernarda Pera from the United States. Eva Lys from Germany is also part of the team.

Retired players

Retired tennis champions who have worn Lacoste include Pablo Andujar from Spain, Anett Kontaveit from Estonia, Julien Benneteau and Jérémy Chardy from France, Dominika Cibulková from Slovakia, and players from the United States such as Kristie Ahn, Christina McHale, Martina Navratilova, and Andy Roddick. Samantha Stosur from Australia also wore Lacoste until 2012.

Golf

Lacoste also sponsors golf players like Adri Arnaus and Azahara Muños from Spain, and several French golfers including Céline Boutier, Camille Chevalier, Julien Guerrier, Gregory Havret, Benjamin Hébert, Céline Herbin, Raphael Jacquelin, Robin Roussel, and Antoine Rozner.

Retailers

Lacoste has many stores around the world. You can find Lacoste clothes in big department stores and also in special Lacoste shops. In the United Kingdom, you can buy Lacoste at places like JD Sports, KJ Beckett, and John Lewis & Partners. In the United States, stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Belk, Halls, and other shops sell Lacoste. In Canada, you can find it at Harry Rosen, Hudson's Bay, Lacoste’s own shops, and other stores. In Australia, Lacoste is sold at David Jones and Myer.

Controversies

In 2011, Lacoste was part of a report by the environmental group Greenpeace that found some of its suppliers in China were polluting important rivers. The report showed that harmful chemicals were being used in making clothes.

Also in 2011, Lacoste was asked to remove a Palestinian artist's work from a competition they sponsored. The artist had created images about Palestine joining UNESCO. Lacoste wanted the artist removed because of the subject of the art, which led to the museum ending its partnership with Lacoste.

In 2020, Lacoste agreed to stop working with suppliers in the Xinjiang region after concerns were raised.

Lacoste has also been criticized for continuing its business in Russia after that country invaded Ukraine in 2022. Some groups said this could support the Russian economy in a way that goes against efforts to pressure Russia to stop the conflict.