Lacoste is an awesome French brand that could be up there with Nike or Adidas, and which is an undisputed member of the sportswear pantheon. Its roots are in tennis, of course, and the founder’s great prowess at the game. Added bonus: It has the peerless, first-ever fashion emoji logo—the crocodile, which was inspired by his defensive nickname.
Louise Trotter, formerly at Joseph, has been brought in to refine Lacoste’s fashion identity and help push it up the rankings. With this debut collection, she sometimes drifted into the Zone, that unforced sweet spot of inspiration and relaxation in which players produce their best game. Her most effective strokes included long plissé nylon skirts under oversize pouch-pocket track tops, which were a straightforwardly effective modernization that you could see working on the street. The pique paneled sweatshirts and deconstructed oversize croc logos on cricket sweaters like the ones René Lacoste used to wear were good too, as was the section homaging the brand’s key shade of green.
Sometimes, however, Trotter drifted out of the Zone: For while you could almost see the creative calories that had been expended to conceive oversize macs with attachable additions, bisected knit dresses, plissé-panel-appendixed pants, and many other tricky pieces, this trickiness seemed forced and unfunctional. She was risking her point by playing a tweener when a forehand would do.
Trotter should try to relax into this gig. Stress-saturated creative intensity is her thing, as we used to see at Joseph, but here at Lacoste perhaps a different mindset is called for to reflect the nature of the brand. Neither total smash nor one to cut, this first set represented Trotter feeling her way into the game; there is plenty more time to find that Zone.
