Lacoste

Lacoste was founded in 1933 from the meeting of French tennis champion René Lacoste and textile entrepreneur André Gillier. Lacoste had been nicknamed "the Crocodile" in 1923 by an American journalist, struck by his tenacity on the court; the athlete had the animal embroidered on a white blazer worn before matches, and that small crocodile became the symbol of a new piqué-knit tennis polo, among the first examples in the world of a brand displayed visibly on a sports garment.

In the following decades the brand gradually diversified beyond clothing, extending the name and the crocodile to footwear, perfumes, eyewear, leather goods and watches, almost always through licensing agreements with partners specialized in each sector. For watchmaking, the decisive agreement came in March 2006, when Lacoste signed a long-term global deal with the American group Movado, which from January 1, 2007 took over the design, production and worldwide distribution of men's and women's watch collections under the Lacoste brand, first presented at the Basel fair in the spring of that year.

In 2012 ownership of Lacoste passed entirely to the Swiss group Maus Frères, which acquired the remaining shares in a deal that valued the company at around one billion euros. The watch license with Movado Group, however, continued, and still produces collections with a sporty-casual character, designed for a young audience and an accessible price range, consistent with the brand's positioning in apparel.