Crocodile’s trip to Chinatown, from tennis to streets

Lacoste cages its crocodile on bowling shirts and bucket hats – after a flirt during Hypefest 2018, the brand releases a limited series of apparel with Chinatown Market

Fashion is a fast-moving system: even Lacoste’s crocodile must swim out of his comfort zone. After three years of collaborations with Supreme, which brought tennis’ most beloved reptilian in the mecca of streetwear, Lacoste turns its gaze to another emerging label, Chinatown Market, bringing to light a fistful of designs mashing together Lacoste’s look with Chinatown’s attitude. If the previous partnership with James Jebbia’s trademark thrived on raincoats, hoodies and reinterpretations of the classic polo, the new collection slaps the green lizard on bowling shirts and bucket hats, engaging streetwear’s language from another angle. Where Supreme’s attitude tends to be brazen and colorful, Chinatown Market win its audience with a laid-back approach, made of self-irony and pop culture references: on his t-shirts Mike Tyson meets comic book aesthetic, plastic dinosaurs and a bootleg version of Ralph Lauren’s teddy bear, here portraited as an NBA player.

The encounter with Lacoste’s vision creates a capsule collection that rethinks the crocodile mascotte in two different shapes: one realistic, printed on bowling shirts as a pattern or on t-shirts as a stamp, and one stylized, embroidered on snapbacks and bucket hats in a flurry of colors. Before this capsule collection the two companies have already collaborated on Hypefest 2018, giving the fans the opportunity to work with Chinatown Market’s team to create personalized graphics for their polos, setting a precedent for this collection; the polos created during the event are now on sales as collector items, coveted by the most hardcore fans of the streetwear scene. Lacoste’s choice of Chinatown Market for this partnership is guided by many reasons: while Mike Cherman’s label meets Lacoste’s style on the color choice, opting for yellows and pink which could be as well on a polo, the brand is also known for its social presence: especially on Instagram, they involve their consumers with courses on how to make serigraph printings or to dive in vintage shops all over the world. This strategy brought attention to the company, both from the youngest demographics and from the height of the world’s star system; both teenagers and celebrities like Erika Badhu, Jay-Z and LeBron James await their new collections. For this one they just have to hang on until September 7^th, 2020.