For Autumn 2017, Lacoste has given carte blanche to the duo of graphic artists Mathias Augustyniak and Michael Amzalag, alias M/M Paris.


Felipe Oliveira Baptista, Lacoste’s artistic director, had been dreaming of combining the iconic crocodile with the talent and the very special world of these two artists. “I admire their work, which I find very personal and rich. I like the alchemy which takes place between their freedom of tone and the strictness of their creations,” he explains.

For three decades, M/M paris has embodied the best there is in the field of signs and visual identity. Among the most innovative designers of their generation, the pair have marked the era with their artistic creations based on thinking
which is always profound and often political.

What makes them original is that they never work in only one medium. Mathias and Michael thus switch according to their affinities from fashion to music, from contemporary art to theatre and from decorating to creating a perfume.

For a long time they put their name to promoting Yohji Yamamoto and, with Nicolas Ghesquière, they created the renaissance vocabulary of Balenciaga. They work among other things today with Jonathan Anderson for Loewe and its JW Anderson brand.

They are the official graphic artists of Björk, Benjamin Biolay, Etienne Daho and Jean-Louis Murat. They also work with the artists Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno, institutions such as the Lorient theatre, the Dijon Consortium and Fiac, whose posters they have been designing since 2005.

An eclectic clientele with whom they build up a long-term relationship in which a genuine complicity is established, each partner assisting the other in its development. We thus took the opportunity to ask the two how they came to envisage this invitation.

THE COLLECTION
The alphabet is undoubtedly the favourite area of expression of Mathias Augustyniak and Michael Amzalag, who have had fun redefining the outline of the iconic crocodile from “A to Z”. Graphically redesigned according to the geometry of the letters composing the brand’s name, the L stylises the crocodile’s tail while the E represents its open mouth. The products in a capsule collection and a limited edition thus take on a new look for a time while these artists work with us.

Produced in the classic LACOSTE colours of white, navy, red, sky blue or flamingo pink, each garment is embroidered with the word “LACOSTE” in green and red two-tone lettering. This embroidery replaces the crocodile on a short-sleeved polo and moves to the middle on a sweater, a headband or wristbands, while a unisex T-shirt carries the whole of the alphabet in which only the letters spelling out LACOSTE are coloured. These graphics are repeated on one side of the reversible Anna bag, the other side showing a print with a repetition of the successful pair’s logo, M/M (Paris).

LIMITED EDITION
For the limited edition, the famous French graphic studio has dreamt up a “days of the week” version of the unisex polo: 7 letters for LACOSTE and one outsize letter for each of the 7 polos always emblazoned with the embroidered
word LACOSTE in place of the crocodile. A heather grey or plain black hoodie and a graphic poncho combining the alphabet print and the M/M (Paris) print complete this limited edition. The added accessories are a pair of white L.12.12 sneakers decorated with the LACOSTE patch and fitted with a red sole, and a crocodile-shaped sports bag.

This collection has been available since the 24th of October 2017 on lacoste.com and debuts from the 15th of November 2017 in all LACOSTE stores worldwide.