Fall Fashion Preview
Lacoste looks to the future by reinventing its past with fun fall clothes
Editor's Note: As the fall fashion season approaches, we look at some of the hot looks that will soon be in stores as shown on the runways of New York Fashion Week.
Designers of venerable brands always have the difficult task of creating fresh looks while staying true to what made the brand successful in the first place. That's particularly true at Lacoste, which has an illustrious history of classic tennis togs and sportswear with the famed alligator logo.
For fall, Lacoste designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista acknowledged the issue head on, stamping a red track suit and grey sweater with the words, "René did it first," in tribute to founder René Lacoste's classic styles along with a bit of a '70s reference in a John McEnroe-style headband.
But then Baptista playfully took some Lacoste looks and turned them on their ear in fresh new ways. He showed tennis dresses with scarf hems worn under blazers, long overcoats trimmed in contrasting piping in the shapes of circles and squares, tight sweater dresses in cable knit patterns resembling tennis stripes and coats with cape-like sleeves that can be unfastened.
And who can resist a checkerboard-patterned tracksuit with a faux-fur cape?