Lacoste Fragrance

Lacoste is a French sports-fashion company founded in 1933 by the tennis champion René Lacoste and the knitwear manufacturer André Gillier [2]. In beauty retail it appears through its licensed fragrance line, a perfumery extension of the house built around the crocodile logo René first wore on court. The fashion business is owned by the Swiss family group Maus Frères, which took full control in 2012; the fragrances themselves are made and sold under licence, a contract that has changed hands several times and moved to Interparfums at the start of 2024 [7].

The brand remains active and global. Lacoste reported around €2.9 billion in revenue and roughly 1,100 retail locations in 2024, the same year its fragrance line passed to a new partner and the "Lacoste Original" scent was relaunched.

The company began as La Chemise Lacoste, set up by René Lacoste with André Gillier, described as the head of the largest French knitwear manufacturer of the day. Its founding product was the embroidered tennis shirt René had designed and worn in competition. The crocodile emblem traces back to 1923, when a Boston journalist nicknamed the nineteen-year-old player "the Crocodile" for his determination on court; in 1927 a stylist drew the crocodile sketches that Lacoste then embroidered onto his blazer [2]. The company presents this as an early instance of a brand mark placed on sporting clothing.

Through the 1970s and 1980s the label became a fixture of American preppy style, earning a mention in the Official Preppy Handbook in 1980 [5].

Lacoste S.A. is owned by Maus Frères, a Swiss family-held group that acquired full ownership in November 2012 for roughly €1 billion [2]. The fragrance side of the business is run separately, under a licence rather than in-house. That licence has passed through a sequence of holders: Procter & Gamble Prestige Beauté signed the original fragrance and beauty agreement in 2000, Lacoste fragrances then joined Coty Luxury at the end of 2016 following Coty's purchase of P&G's specialty beauty brands [4], and the rights moved again to Interparfums on 1 January 2024 under a fifteen-year deal reported to carry a €90 million entrance fee [7]. Within Interparfums, Lacoste sits alongside other licensed fragrance houses including Lanvin, Rochas, Goutal Paris and Guess.

According to the company, Lacoste draws on its founder's sporting values of high standards, fair play and daring, and treats elegance "as a way of being." It frames its perfumery as an extension of those same values into scent. Wikiparfum, summarising the fragrance line's positioning, describes a blend of tradition, innovation and sporty style aimed at "men and women of different generations who have adopted the crocodile logo as a symbol of confidence and achievement" [3]. Under Coty's management the men's fragrances were positioned at the premium-plus end of the market.

The first Lacoste perfume is dated inconsistently across sources. Some histories place an early men's fragrance in 1968, with the design work sometimes attributed to Jean Patou; Wikiparfum instead records "Lacoste Original" (also sold as Lacoste pour Homme) as the brand's first perfume [3]. The earlier date is not consistently corroborated, and the two accounts are best read as an unresolved point rather than a settled fact.

The line's most prominent release is the Eau de Lacoste L.12.12 collection, launched in 2011 in three men's versions — White, Blue and Green — and dedicated to the polo shirt first designed in 1927. Fragrantica describes the L.12.12 Blanc Eau de Toilette as the brand's bestselling fragrance [6]. Other pillars developed during the Coty years include L'Homme Lacoste. The range spans aromatic fougère, watery and floral or fruity styles. After the move to Interparfums, "Lacoste Original" was relaunched in June 2024.

The fragrance licence has drawn ongoing trade coverage: WWD reported on the Coty–Lacoste partnership in 2018 [8], and Cosmetics Business covered the 2022 decision to buy the licence back from Coty and sign with Interparfums, noting the award-winning pillars L'Homme and Match Point built under Coty [7]. The actor Hayden Christensen fronted the Lacoste Challenge fragrance in 2009.

In December 2011 Lacoste was accused of censoring the work of Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour, who had been a candidate for the Lacoste Élysée prize, with the brand reportedly calling the work "too pro-Palestinian." The episode drew international criticism [2]. It concerned the fashion house rather than the fragrance line specifically.

Lacoste is an active, global business. In 2024 it reported about €2.9 billion in revenue, roughly 1,100 retail locations and some 8,200 employees [2]. Its fragrance line is continuously licensed, with the most recent change being the transfer to Interparfums effective 1 January 2024 and the June 2024 relaunch of "Lacoste Original."