WATCH: Lacoste Reclaims Its Game In Luxury Sportswear At Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2020

Serving up her second collection for the house, Louise Trotter aces all her points merging dynamic harmonies in heritage and innovation

Kat Cruz-Villanueva

October 17, 2019, 03:58 PM

With its house built on the storied past of tennis, Louise Trotter, formerly of Joseph, took home court advantage and brought us to the Court Simonne-Mathieu in Paris’s Roland Garros Tennis Complex, a fitting venue as you see the season’s story be brought back to its fundamentals. Tennis skirts were translated into box-pleat yolk skirts; anoraks reimagined in various shapes and as apron dresses. Pristine tennis whites awash the runway punctuated with the Lacoste Vert 123 green and city neutrals.

The brand's signature item, the polo shirt, also took centerstage as the silhouette for experimentation: oversized in color blocks with exaggerated striped knit collars, as floor-sweeping tunics, or as the anchor to sprightly colored monochromatic urban suiting. And it is this fusion of house staples with urban essentials that truly caught our eye. From butter leather sports trousers paired with clean cut shirts, or trench coat iterations in performance fabric, Trotter was able to strongly marry heritage with innovation. Elevated comfort, was the watchword for the show.

To mark the beginning of what seems to be a promising season ahead, her slew of 51 models paraded down the clay court, and as if on cue, like a grand gesture to the prevailing narrative of Lacoste reclaiming its ranks in luxury sportswear, a curtain of rain shower closed the show.