The codes and culture around sports are an ongoing obsession for Lacoste‘s Creative Director Louise Trotter, informing her dynamic approach to the brand as a veritable pillar of French sportswear. Drawn from the world of tennis—the brand’s very lifeblood—to cycling, basketball, and other city sports, the spirit of the movement, lightness, and functionality is paramount in her design process. By considering the convergence of sporting uniforms with our everyday lives, the collection blurs the lines between performance and aesthetics for a streamlined response to summer in the city.
Examining the individuality of sportsmen and sportswomen, fundamental silhouettes reveal surface innovation and contrasting details elevated with technical polish. From elegant portraits of René Lacoste and his tennis partner Suzanne Lenglen in the Roaring Twenties to Peter Sutherland and Philippe Bialobos‘ rhythmic documentation of urban bike couriers in the 2000s, a call-and-repeat of sartorial and sports tropes results in hybrid typologies and subtle nods to sporting subcultures. Shorts suits are cut from neoprene piqué jerseys, pleated tennis skirts in frosted pastel rubber, and the Lacoste polo reimagined in printed mesh.
New color research shifts the perception of classic sports references, with an emphasis on warm, bright tones of scarlet, emerald, burgundy, orange, and acid yellow against the classic Lacoste palette of Lacoste green, navy, taupe, black, and optic white. The aeration and ventilation of garments are explored with mesh logo paneling and vented inserts explored across cycling vests, track shorts, and basketball tanks, whilst ergonomic perforations are laser cut by hand into neoprene varsity jackets. Engineered knits follow suit, with fully-fashioned striped rib dresses and matching ensembles joining new iterations of the signature patchwork tennis sweater. Soft parachute nylons and gloss finishes accentuate games of transparency, joining invisible- or hidden-stitched embossed rubber outerwear and framis-zipped drawstring anoraks for a sense of immediacy and speed.
Offbeat accessories complement the season’s metropolitan style, from molded pool slides and jacquard knee socks to tinted shield sunglasses on neoprene straps, flask holders, and buckled crossbody messenger bags. Cutout trainers are traced with bungee cord lacing, underlining the youthful spirit alongside modular digital wristwatches, pastel carabiner keyrings, tennis visors, and the flat-brimmed 5-panel ‘Girolle’ cap in neoprene jersey.
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