LACOSTE AUTUMN/WINTER 2015-16 READY-TO-WEAR

Now that his own collection is on hold, Felipe Oliveira Baptista claims he’s been able to put more of himself into his work for Lacoste. Six months of himself, in fact. Which would explain why Lacoste’s latest had such a distinctive fashion personality. Winter tennis was the theme. “A mix of bourgeois and street kid,” was Baptista’s grand design, which meant the formal and the casual cohabiting. Picture a tweed coat, a grass green trench, and a teddy bear fur over tracksuits in silk as well as conventional nylon. Eccentric, in a Royal Tenenbaums vein. And wasn’t that Luke Wilson’s headband?

But such curios aside, Baptista’s focus was on de- and reconstructing René Lacoste’s classics for a new world. “René did it first” was his message, and, to an impressive degree, he managed to honor Lacoste while updating him. The tennis dresses with scarf hems, the cable knits cut on the bias, and the diagonal athletic stripes all added up to a dynamic take on a label the world thinks it knows too well.