Paris, June 19: On Monday, Lacoste celebrated its 70th birthday since René Lacoste invented for his own use a cool and comfortable short-sleeved tennis shirt.
Since then, the family company has become a lifestyle label with its emblematic crocodile the first sports logo to creep into fashionable wardrobes. In hindsight, the summer of 1933 can be seen as the start of an enduring love match between sport and fashion. Active wear and designer fashion are now so thoroughly enmeshed that it is difficult to believe that they ever ran on twin tracks. The sarong and braids sported by the soccer player David Beckham is just one example of the sex/sport/shopping mantra that has seen soccer players’ wives overtake Hollywood wives in glamour.
Sporty looks have come a long way since Coco Chanel first parlayed the shirts of aristocratic polo players into 1920s fashion; and since the futuristic André Courrèges favoured a personal wardrobe of sports shirts and sneakers. That was both prescient and shocking at a haute couture show in 1965. There was even a shiver of surprise at seeing President Bill Clinton wearing a baseball cap, appropriated from rappers by baby-boomers in the 1980s. Now the match is in full swing. Sports companies are tapping designers, such as Yohji Yamamoto’s Y-3 collection for Adidas or Puma’s yoga deal with the model Christy Turlington. And high fashion is sending the ball back. Prada Sport was launched in the 1990s with as much splash as the Prada Luna Rossa yacht took on the America’s Cup. Louis Vuitton and Ferragamo have sailing lines and Pucci even has its swirling Vivara pattern on a boat sail — half a century after Emilio Pucci launched his fashion career with skiwear.
Dior’s John Galliano has produced a high-tech logo sneaker, made in collaboration with Tod’s. And Gwen Stefani, one of Dior’s rock star clients, is sending out her own design bag with LeSportsac. Celebrity goes with sport, from the familiar star endorsements to the newer linking of boldface names: the Italian designer Giorgio Armani dressing Beckham’s Manchester United team (his team, that is, until the charismatic star’s future is decided); Donatella Versace putting soccer stars alongside rockers in the front row at her shows, or the Los Angeles-based Juicy Couture sexing up the tracksuit for its Hollywood clients.
In this fashion melee, Lacoste has played a smart game. It still sponsors sports champions in golf, sailing and tennis (René Lacoste’s home ground). But it has also pushed up sales of the iconic handwoven cotton pique polo shirts exponentially. With 27 million products sold annually, Lacoste sales in 2002 totalled euro 860 million. At the same time, the company has moved quietly toward fashion, not just with its appointment in 2001 of the French designer Christophe Lemaire as creative director, but also with a raft of products from women’s lingerie to polka-dot sneakers. The private shop for clients and sponsored stars in the courtyard of Lacoste’s Paris headquarters sends out the same breezy message as the 750 shops and 1.5 million in-store boutiques worldwide: sporty clothes can be fun, colourful and desirable, as well as functional. Everything from sports bags to windbreakers has the stylish touch innate to René Lacoste, who appears dashing and at ease in photographs with his fellow "musketeers," who founded Roland Garros, the French Open tennis championship and its clay courts. Bernard Lacoste, one of René’s three sons and the boss of the shirt company for 40 years, sees the introduction of colour to the iconic polo shirts in 1951 as the moment when sport embraced fashion. The shirts now come in juicy shades from lemon yellow to mulberry. Sitting in his airy office, with its grass green carpet and a bronze panther statue (a 70th birthday gift from his family) competing with crocodiles carved in Rajasthan, painted in China or even sculpted out of bread, Lacoste explains that the company’s development mirrors the evolution of society. "People now have more time for sport, leisure and vacations," he says. "There are entire professions from architects through doctors who have moved toward casual wear. Now when I am going out in the evening I take off my tie if I am going to a restaurant — otherwise you look old!"



Although Bernard Lacoste never followed his father onto the tennis court (he took up golf after paparazzi invaded his first tennis lesson), he admires the invention that produced the first metal racquets, bouncy strings and automatic ball dispensers. Sport stars are used to test the ergonomics of new designs, as well as for their publicity value. Lacoste’s mantra is to listen to consumers and give them what they want. His mission has been to globalize the brand, taking it into China, for example. "I am indulgent with China because the evolution has been so fast — doing in five years what has taken other countries 20 years," says Lacoste, referring to problems with counterfeits. Realising that the climate in Asia makes sport a seasonal activity, Lacoste produced romantic fashion ads, shot by Wong Kar-Wai, director of the hit 2000 movie "In the Mood for Love." Without any attempt to become hip, the company has found itself at the centre of style for young urban French kids. Lacoste says he is not surprised, since postwar Italian youth, riding Vespas, had also picked up on Lacoste shirts. But the logo — like the clothes — is subtly updated: the crocodile slimmed down and given sharper teeth; the polo shirts offered in stretch cotton and cropped at the midriff, but still made by the same supplier since 1933.



How has Lacoste managed to remain a family-run company (19 members are shareholders) in a corporate world? There are only three active members: Bernard; his brother Michel, managing director, and his nephew Philippe. "I have great respect for the family system," says Lacoste. "But then in my 40 years I have always preferred team sports like basketball, rugby and golf to individual endeavour."