The Lacoste rebirth by Louise Trotter

British designer Louise Trotter has made a 180-degree change in all the brands that have gone through her creative direction. Her experience as a buyer has helped her to capture the demand from cool kids who want to wear her pastel and color-blocking dyed garments. Her collections balance high tailoring and the London rave essence in a single concept that has transformed Lacoste and updated the codes of the new era. We review her legacy in the history of fashion.

Louise was born in Sunderland: where she studied marketing and design at Newcastle Polytechnic. From the very beginning, balancing the creativity of the subconscious with a rational and marketing vision, she got a position as a purchasing and design manager at Whistles. Later, she moved to New York to take over as vice-president of womenswear for GAP.

That journey in design for women’s clothing led him to move up to the next screen in the fashion game, positioning himself in the creative direction of womenswear for Calvin Klein. Later he would do it for Tommy Hilfiger.

Back in England (2007) she joined the British brand Jigsaw as a creative director, until two years later she achieved one of her most prominent roles in the fashion industry for Joseph. The designer moved to Paris to succeed the firm’s founder, Joseph Ettedgui, and set out on a path that would lead to the brand’s international expansion.

The queen of minimalism on the British scene offered her interpretation of trends, respecting Ettedgui’s heritage and updating the house codes to dress Parisian women in an elegant and contemporary uniform. Her mix of Tomboyish and feminine styles, influenced by the clubber scene in the north of England, spoke to a young target audience that connected more than ever with the women of the 21st century.

“I believe clothes are not just there to look pretty, they’re something to really live in and wear”

THE LACOSTE TRANSFORMATION

In July 2018 Louise announced her departure from Joseph, after a nine-year period, to join Lacoste as the brand’s first creative director with 85 years of heritage, succeeding the legacy of the iconic Felipe Oliviera Baptista. The evolution of the crocodile had already been altered.

Trotter made his debut for Lacoste to a global applause at Paris Fashion Week with the unveiling of his Fall 2019 collection. Inspired by figures like René Lacoste and Suzanne Lenglen, she found balance in imbalance and deconstruction. So he took to the stage a proposal that dressed the cool kids on the court in the most avant-garde way possible.

Louise put her creative focus on reinventing the codes of the French maison, updating the archive of René Lacoste. In this fusion between tradition and experimentation, the designer presented a line of technical and elegant garments. The deconstruction of the classic Lacoste polo shirt, the reworking of the logo, her work in patchwork, architectural forms, tailoring, crochet and colour blocking elevated Lacoste’s heritage more than ever, giving it an advanced level of craftsmanship. Not to mention the oversized silhouettes and polished lines that had just been painted on the sportswear proposal.

SS20 was Louise’s last episode for the brand, which was presented in October 2019. The designer gave way once again to a collection that reinvented the look of the tennis court, and which made us want each and every one of her commercial garments, which are not basic.

In it, Robert George’s 1926 crocodile appeared in various formats in pockets, silk trousers, in exquisite all-over print loafers, as well as in oversized polo shirts and technical garments with which to wear from the runway to the street. Knitwear and tailoring once again shone in the proposal bathed in eccentric colors.

The British designer has become the ideal creative mind for a brand that is weaving the garments of a new generation, beyond mythical collaborations like Golf Le Fleur or the contemporary line Lacoste Live. A brand of contrasts with a very strong heritage that projects its gaze towards the future: hence the perfect union with Louise Trotter‘s vision and her slogan ‘Eternally innovative and forever elegant’.