Fashion collections are often ways to tell a tale about something or comment about a particular issue.
Lacoste Creative Director Felipe Oliveira Baptista moved for example from a story directly linked to the family behind the brand for the A/W 18 collection.
During World War II founder René Lacoste planted with his wife, champion golfer Simone Thion de la Chaume, 125 acres of forest around the golf course of Chantaco (founded by Lacoste's father-in-law, the course belonged to his wife's family) in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, in south western France.
The project was carried out with the help of German citizens and local people who were saved in this way from conscription and deportation in Nazi Germany.
Memories of this story were recreated on the set that reproduced a green golf course with a large tree, but also the clothes were inspired by this story.
Baptista formed indeed a partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) creating for the occasion the Lacoste X Save Our Species (IUCN) capsule collection.
The latter comprises ten limited edition polo shirts in which ten endangered species of animals took the place of the brand's trademark crocodile (the shirts are already available online).
Besides, the ten creatures were also replicated on ten designs that closed the show and that included a vaquita porpoise tracksuit, a kakapo parrot two-piece, a Javan rhino tapestry top and a Cao Vit gibbon topcoat.
The collection focused on sporty and casual clothes such as reversible parkas and raincoats, quilted shearling jackets, ponchos-cum-capes, high-waisted skirts, leather jackets, asymmetric cable-knit ensembles, velvet tracksuits and corduroy jumpsuits.
The organic palette included autumnal tones such as lichen green and forest shades calling to mind the colours of barks and dried leaves and was broken by prints of digital photographs of endangered animals and forests reproduced on raincoats and rainproof jackets.
Rather than revolving around de luxe streetwear, the collection was a functional vision of a fantasy aristocracy at leisure as proved also by the eccentric deconstructed polo matched with elegant yet dull dark brown trousers (most looks were accessorised on the runway with rubber boots created in collaboration with French master bootmakers Aigle, that conjured up memories of members of the British Royal family walking in the countryside...).
The sport element was reintroduced via tops with vintage golf graphics (understandable given the above-mentioned golf connections...) lifted from the house archives.
The only crime in this collection were maybe the late-'80s-early '90s silhouettes and the elasticated and washed denims that should have been safely left in a distant past, and that could be considered in the context of this runway as a minor crime in an otherwise interesting story about sustainability and altruism.
The story of Lacoste's forest planting project had indeed a social and environmental impact missing in other collections: fashion pollutes and exploits and the society in which we are living promotes the cult of the self and of overconsumption over altruism (influencers and celebrities' Instagram accounts are full of "look at what I'm wearing" posts during the various fashion weeks...). So the main ideas and the story behind the collection and the project were honourable and hopefully consumers will like them as well.
Stay tuned to discover what doesn't get along with nature and conservation in the second part of this post, out tomorrow.
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