The day before yesterday, 25 years after the death of Rene Lacoste (12/10/1996), the crocodile emblem is one of the most famous fashion logos in history. Rene Lacoste together with Fred Perry, Sergio Tacchini and Stan Smith were one of the most important personalities in the sport (tennis) and today they have left their indelible creation in the field of men’s fashion and more. Rene Lacoste in 1933 had founded Lacoste, perhaps the most famous tennis brand in the world, with the Logo the green crocodile.
More specifically, in 1923 in Boston, Rene Lacoste walks down a city street with tennis team leader Alan Muhr before their afternoon match. Alen Muhr, noticing on the street an elegant bag made of crocodile skin, says to Rene Lacoste “if you do everything to win, I will give it to you as a gift”. And Lacoste accepts both the challenge and the bet.
In the match, however, the young Lacoste lost. But after Boston Evening Transcript journalist George Carens overheard their dialogue, he wrote in a later article: “The young Lacoste failed to win the briefcase, but fought like a crocodile.” The crocodile has now become Lacoste’s nickname on the pitch.
Now that everyone was calling Lacoste a crocodile, long before he started his own tennis clothing and footwear company, Rene Lacoste asked his good friend and illustrator Robert George to draw a green crocodile and sew it in his pocket of his white jacket he wore before each match. After the founding of his company, the crocodile that only he wore became the most famous and successful logo in the history of fashion.
