What the thing is
A French fashion brand founded in 1933.
Where it came from
René Lacoste and André Gillier launched La Chemise Lacoste in 1933, producing a polo shirt with an embroidered crocodile logo.
The crocodile began as a nickname. In 1923 an American journalist from Boston started calling the 19-year-old tennis player “the Crocodile”, partly for his determination on court and partly because of an unusual bet with his team captain, Allan Muhr, over a crocodile-skinned suitcase. The nickname outlasted the bet. In 1927 the American stylist Robert George drew crocodiles for him, and Lacoste embroidered one on the white blazer he wore before every match. Gillier was the owner and president of the largest French knitwear manufacturing firm at the time, and the polo they put into production was the one Lacoste had designed and worn on the tennis courts.
In the United States the shirt first sold through someone else. From the 1950s Izod made clothing known as Izod Lacoste under exclusive licence for the U.S. market, and the partnership ended in 1993 when Lacoste regained its U.S. rights. In 1977 a rival, Le Tigre, was founded to compete directly, selling a similar range with a tiger in place of the crocodile.
What it gets right
It made the polo shirt a branded garment. It put a logo on sportswear before anyone else claimed to.
What it gets wrong
It treats its own origin story as self-evident truth. The claim that it was ‘the first example of a brand appearing on sport clothing’ is unverified outside company statements.
Its supply chain has drawn documented criticism. In July 2011 Greenpeace’s Dirty Laundry report accused Lacoste, among other major brands, of working with suppliers in China that contribute to pollution of the Yangtze and Pearl Rivers. In March 2020 the Australian Strategic Policy Institute accused at least 82 major brands, Lacoste included, of being connected to forced Uyghur labour in Xinjiang, and that July Lacoste agreed to cease all activity with its suppliers and subcontractors there.
Why it matters now
Because its licensing model, trademark battles, and supply chain controversies prefigure today’s fast-fashion ethics crises—and its logo remains a litmus test for brand ownership in global sportswear.
The logo has been contested in more than one court. Lacoste’s crocodile faces right and was registered in France in 1933; Hong Kong’s Crocodile Garments used one facing left, registered in Asian countries in the 1940s and 1950s. When Lacoste tried to block Crocodile’s application to register its logo in China in the 1990s, the dispute ended in a settlement in which Crocodile agreed to change its logo. A separate 20-year fight with Singapore’s Crocodile International produced a ruling from the Supreme Court of the Philippines, released on 6 November 2023, that there was no confusing similarity between the two marks, deciding in favour of Crocodile International.
The company has since pulled control back in. Under CEO Thierry Guibert, Lacoste moved to 70 per cent of sales in its own stores and 30 per cent through wholesalers, the inverse of the earlier ratio, to better control brand image and pricing, and it bought back licences for shoes, leather goods and undergarments.
Is it worth your time
Yes—if you care how branding colonised sport, and how a logo became a legal weapon.
