To design its latest TV commercial, the Lacoste crocodile has seemingly come down its conceptual ladder. Gone are the days when two lovers first jump into the void, before finding themselves clinging to each other, a few years later, when their building collapses, under the impact of the crisis they are going through. Back to reality. And reality, when you wear Lacoste clothing, starts by coming across other crocodiles. Not always on people who look like you. Unfortunately.
It can happen that a casual rapper with a Romeo Elvis style meets a retired golfer from the stylish seaside resort of La Baule, wearing the same polo shirt or the same pink bucket hat as him. The early adopter is not always the one you think… Will something happen between them? This is not certain, but it is Lacoste’s new ambition. Because if the first, mindful of his image, will note their common point, the second isn’t likely to notice anything…
When clothing brands want to embrace too much, part of their customers are not aware that it has suddenly become “trendy” and continue to live as if nothing happened… The others mobilize tremendous inventiveness to express their difference, playing on the color, size, the way to wear them, believing that their salvation depends on it. Fashion is not about clothing but about attitudes. Lacoste reminds us of this in passing.
Traditionally, fashion is also a pendular response oscillating between the quest for resemblance (power of integration) and the desire for personal expression (power of differentiation) according to customers’ moments or desires. The Lacoste case shows the stake has slightly shifted: it is now less about difference than about alterity. Otherness as recognition and acceptance of the existence of other people as different persons. Otherness in the service of living together. The challenge is no longer to see others as those from whom one must keep away to affirm oneself, but to recognize in them the resemblance within their difference. The resemblance in the service of the difference. I accept your difference as long as it has something in common with me. The logo as a link.