Lacoste snappy

At the height of the preppy craze in the US some 30 years ago, you could scarcely walk down the street without running into someone wearing one of fashion’s best-known brand icons: the Lacoste crocodile. According to Lacoste’s communications material, its crocodile was the first brand emblem to be displayed externally on an article of clothing. The year was 1933, and whether its claim is accurate or not, it seems the whole idea started as a joke. Named for designer and French tennis player René Lacoste, the brand inadvertently launched when he wore one of his own unique, white jersey petit piqué knit shirts to the 1926 US Open—and won.

Lacoste was dubbed “the Alligator” by the American press after rumors surfaced regarding a wager with the captain of the French Davis Cup Team involving a suitcase made of alligator skin. According to Lacoste, the nickname stuck because it “conveyed the tenacity I displayed on the tennis courts, never letting go of my prey!" He had a friend draw a crocodile, which was promptly embroidered onto the blazers he wore while on court. The crocodile emblem eventually became the rave of elite tennis fans everywhere. In 1933, Lacoste launched his brand, La Societe Chemise Lacoste, with partner André Gillier, president of one of the largest French knitwear manufacturing companies of the time.