L.12.12
Line History
L.12.12 is the name Lacoste still uses today for its original 1933 polo shirt, the piqué-knit garment with the embroidered crocodile that started the brand: a code the company later extended to other product categories, watches included, as a direct nod to its own origins. The L.12.12 watch line was thus born as the catalog's most identity-defining collection, the one bearing the brand's symbolic name rather than a fanciful one.
Since the debut of the Lacoste watch collection, produced under license by Movado Group starting in 2007, L.12.12 has represented the broadest, most cross-cutting line, offered in numerous case and movement variants: from base three-hand versions, designed as an affordable everyday watch, to chronograph executions with visible sub-counters, bi-material cases in aluminum or steel, and even a square-case variant offered under the name "Studio."
The common thread remains a sporty-casual aesthetic consistent with the brand's apparel: clean dials, interchangeable silicone or leather straps, and the crocodile always present as a recognizable detail on the dial or crown. It is a line designed more for breadth of audience — men, women, accessible price points — than for technical innovation, in keeping with the brand's fashion positioning.
Technical Specifications
Main Executions
The crocodile that gives the brand its name began as a nickname: in 1923 an American journalist gave it to René Lacoste for his tenacity on the court, and the future founder had it embroidered on a blazer worn before matches. Ten years later, that same crocodile appeared on the polo shirt that would become the L.12.12 — and that today lends its name to a watch collection as well.