Lacoste’s Louise Trotter is bringing the heritage brand to millennials

Louise Trotter is telling me about her early clubbing days in the North of England. It was an important part of her youth, a period of her life that’s heavily influenced her professional trajectory as a fashion designer and creative director, taking her to London, New York and eventually to Paris, where in October 2018, Trotter made news when she was named creative director of Lacoste. It was growing up in Sunderland that Trotter first experienced the creative impact of nightlife, as well as the contrast between cold and warm that’s inspired her. “I’ve always been really attached to music, and the fashion around music,” she says, “I grew up in quite a concrete city with this level of contrast, and I’ve come to realise that I find harmony and inspiration in that.” 

Trotter has reshaped the aesthetic of Lacoste in just one season with ravey colours on the same dress as a neutral beige, strict architectural shapes blended with handmade knitwear and reams of tailoring paired with a frayed Lacoste logo. The fact she’s managed to create an Autumn/Winter 2019 collection – her first for Lacoste – that’s exactly what people want in their wardrobes before they even know it, well, it doesn’t surprise me. The British designer has worked her love for both a casual knit and a structured coat into this collection and still nothing feels out of place on the catwalk of this heritage brand.

Because of all this, Trotter has become one of the most talked about designers of the year. Her success comes via roles at Whistles in the UK during the Nineties, then Gap, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger in New York, Jigsaw in the UK again, then Joseph in 2009, where she made her name in tailoring everyday wear. Now residing in Paris for the last four years, she’s enjoying the radical fashion aspect of her role while looking back into Lacoste’s archive.

Thanks so much for making the time to speak with me. I’m such a big fan of your work. I loved the Autumn/Winter 2019 collection, it was really beautiful.

Thank you.

How are things going? I saw on your Instagram that you’re working on fittings for Spring/ Summer 2020.

It’s been extremely busy at the moment. Because I work on everything we do as a brand, it’s busy, but it’s very, very interesting and very rewarding.

So, from Paris, where you are now, to the North of England. I wanted to start with your background and growing up in the North. I know that you’ve spoken before about how that has impacted your approach to design.

I grew up in an area that had a beautiful, incredible coastline – in Sunderland, by the beach and the sea. And I grew up with this level of contrast. There was an incredibly beautiful coastline, wild countryside, but with a very concrete and ‘down’ city. So I grew up with this level of contrast. I’ve subconsciously always kind of thought that was in my work and also within my surroundings and me as a person. I still go back there all the time, and I like that contrast because it’s incredibly beautiful. It can look like quite a barren and hard place. I think that’s really what drew me to Lacoste, because Lacoste is a brand of contrast. On one side, we have a beautiful heritage, a rich heritage from our founder René Lacoste, dating back to the Thirties. At the same time, René was an innovator. He was constantly looking forward, and Lacoste as a brand is constantly looking forward and innovating. I think that’s why we really come together. Being French is very much a culture of contrast.

The North of England has such a rich history in clubbing and I don’t know if you’re a clubber, but I wondered if nightlife in the Nineties affected you.

Yes, it did.

This might be totally wrong, but I just loved that logo that you had with all the fraying. That felt almost a bit ravey to me …

It’s interesting that you say that because music has been a big influence on me. When I was growing up, music really represented something, it was about belonging. And I’ve followed music all my life. From when I was younger and getting dressed for nights out, to rave culture in the Nineties. And I’ve always really been attached to music and the fashion around music. I’ve always found that really interesting, and also, I like that element of community – that you belong to something when you attach yourself to a music movement. So yes, and then certainly once I moved to London. During the Nineties, rave culture was very important in my life.

Those were like the clubbing years in England. I just don’t think there is that anymore, you can’t really go out in that way now.

Yeah, I know. You know, I can remember, even from the Eighties, the Mud Club [an event held at Busby’s in London’s Charing Cross, known for extravagant costumes] and then during the Nineties, London was such an amazing place because you had all these subcultures around music. And that was the foundation, for me, that was where I really honed my aesthetic and my character during that time. So I am very pleased that I was fortunate enough to live through that and have that experience.

Your upcoming Spring/Summer 2020 will be your second at Lacoste. How does a collection begin for you? In your Autumn/ Winter 2019 show, you seemed to stick to the underpinnings of the brand, but there was some stuff that felt quite radical and just so exciting to see, like the knitwear polo shirts, all the tailoring.

First of all, I was very drawn to Lacoste because of René Lacoste and because of the history of the brand. And he was really the person who drew me into the brand, with who I really connected. The knitwear is… I enjoy knitwear, I like knitwear. It comes quite naturally to me. First of all, I looked at it in the context of the polo t-shirt, and not just through jersey but knitwear. I’ve worked a lot on the polo t-shirt through different scales and through different treatments, colours and textures. And then I was also looking at how I can use colour blocking and knitwear that was really colourful and handmade.

The polo shirts are handknitted?

They were hand-knitted, yes.

Oh, wow! Amazing. How did you approach the logo? Because on some of the items, like the knitted polo shirt, the logo is a bit bigger. And then also you’ve got some versions where wool seems to be pouring out the logo too, like it’s frayed. How did that come about?

The original crocodile was actually hand-embroidered. And I felt, coming into the brand, that the crocodile in places has become quite ubiquitous. And I wanted to look at the crocodile in a different way, in different scales, in different media, to bring a kind of artisanal quality back to it. And hand embroidery with thread left undone, because in a way, the brand is unfinished for me. And I wanted to have a sense of unfinishedness, that it was still a work in progress. And you could see that continuing to the next season in the sense that I’m looking through the archive and looking at various crocodiles that have existed previously, and how I might repackage them.

It felt like you really brought a lot of your creative outlook to the collection. For example, the tailoring was just so beautiful. And, you know, I think people who wouldn’t have necessarily looked to Lacoste for tailoring before, or women who might not have necessarily been as excited by Lacoste, were just completely into it, everyone was talking about it. How did you bring your vision into the context of a sportswear brand?

Tailoring has always been part of my background. When I was researching René, it struck me that in every image I found of him, he was wearing something tailored. I didn’t think that could be ignored and I wanted to bring it back. But how would René wear tailoring today? I was quite specific in working with a tailor who came from a military background because I really wanted to have movement within the tailoring. What’s interesting with military tailoring is that you have to understand movement.

I loved the block colour polo dress you showed, with the bright purple on one side and the beige on the other.

I wanted to make a polo dress. And for the women, I worked a lot with pleating because I really had two women in mind: René’s wife Simone [de la Chaume], and then Suzanne Lenglen, who was his tennis partner. I studied Suzanne and she was always in pleated or long-pleated skirts and was quite masculine in her dress. And so it is really a combination of those two references.

It was such a talked-about piece. In fact, the whole event created a storm. Do you think it’s important for a brand to show?

Yes. I think we have to remember that even though it’s a huge industry, I really believe in creating clothes people can wear because in the end, clothes are not art – they are to be worn. I think it’s also important that we dream and there is an element of dreaming and there is an element of that experience and journey, and shows allow for that, they really do. They allow us to dream for 10 minutes and they allow us to be really submerged into a brand. 

This interview has been edited and condense for clarity. The article was originally published in SLEEK 63, out now!