From French premium to luxury streetwear
Strategic Planner
A tennis brand that became a French icon. To become a global luxury brand, it first had to choose its direction.
In 2021, Lacoste wanted to move from French premium ready-to-wear to luxury, and to speak to the whole world. The first question was where its category was heading.
Four directions, one instinct.
Diagnosis
Data on where ready-to-wear brands, Lacoste and its competitors, would be within five years. Four directions emerged.
Fast fashion
Volume and price. A dead end for a heritage brand.
Ultra luxury
Absolute scarcity. Out of step with Lacoste’s story.
Accessible luxury
The register of upscale urban fashion. A place already taken.
Luxury streetwear
Fewer tennis and preppy codes, a brand closer to everyone and loosened from local codes, one that travels everywhere. This instinct fed Lacoste’s whole pivot.
One idea, every European market.
Campaigns
Play: sport as the culture every culture shares.
Steering the adaptation of the big idea across the European markets: what stays identical everywhere, what changes from one market to the next.
Play Big launched in 2024 and won the Grand Prix de la Communication Extérieure 2025. Its sequel, Play With Icons, won it again in 2026.
Sources La Réclame, Play Big · CB News, GPCE 2025 · La Réclame, GPCE 2026
A repositioning toward luxury streetwear, visible today
One platform, play, carried from Play Big to Play With Icons
A five-year reading of the category, behind the brand’s choices