Designing For the Taxi Driver and the President
Louise Trotter, photographed by Anders Edström
LOUISE TROTTER
Designing For the Taxi Driver and the President
By Bonnie Langedijk
For over a decade, English designer Louise Trotter has pioneered minimal design. She’s held the role of Creative Director at Jigsaw, Joseph, and since 2018 at Lacoste. As the multi-billion dollar French brand’s first ever female creative lead in its 89 year history, she oversees the entire design universe. Today, that ranges from its bi-annual Paris runway shows and its performance collections, to collaborations — including those with Supreme, Tyler the Creator’s Golf le Fleur, and photographer Julien Boudet a.k.a Blue Mode.
Her role equally includes injecting the brand into contemporary culture. She does so by making today’s pioneers like Venus Williams, Peggy Gou, A$AP Nast and Evan Mock brand ambassadors, creating campaigns with Suzanne Koller and Bibi Borthwick — modeled by Giedre Dukauskaite, Kerolyn Soares and Teddy Quinlivan — and most of all showing up where expected, on the tennis courts at Roland Garros.
Having worked with major brands such as Gap, Calvin Klein, and Tommy Hilfiger, Trotter has long acted as a bridge between fashion-forward creative and commercially-driven design. Clear Creative Director mentality, which prior to joining Lacoste, led her to the helm of Joseph where she spent 9 years transforming the brand into “a London version of Céline, at much more accessible prices”. The New York Times’ Elizabeth Paton wrote that so it’s undeniably true.
Fastforward. Today, Trotter is breathing new life into the iconic crocodile, a symbol that, much like Nike or Apple, is one of those rare global brands that transcends demographics and geographics yet still manages to imbue unique value for each group.
“It really is the brand for the taxi driver and the president. I mean it has that breadth. I have friends who wear a polo to go and have tea with their grandma and then they also go out at night with it,” Trotter tells me over a 35-minute phone call.
With a luxury fashion market that is becoming more democratic than ever, Trotter understands that the industry isn’t what it used to be.
Courtesy of Lacoste
Lacoste SS22 Active Lifestyle Campaign
Bonnie: Let’s backtrack. Much like Nike, Lacoste is a brand that many of us have a connection to given its global scale. What was that first point of interaction with the brand for you?
Louise: Do you know what? I think my first ever piece was when I was a child playing tennis at school, this association with tennis and the crocodile. I grew up in the north of England, so not a particularly wealthy area, and Lacoste for me was a luxury brand. It was a brand that I aspired to, from a tennis point of view but then after that culturally.
So Lacoste came into your life through the sport that it was founded around?
As a child I loved playing tennis. I used to chalk out a tennis court with my best friend, and I would literally play until there was no light. I have to say I'm quite animated when I watch tennis as well. I get very involved. And then, my husband, he's also a huge tennis fan, wears Lacoste every day, pretty much.
Well he has the perfect plug now.
Yeah, he's really happy.
“It’s just about CREATING great clothes that people can wear and ENJOY, and through that, they’re commercial, right?”
I grew up in the Netherlands and wearing luxury products isn't that much of a thing when compared to a city like London or Paris. We grew up with brands like Tommy Hilfiger or Lacoste, those more accessible luxury brands.
I grew up at a time when sport and music culture was very connected to sub cultures and the way that you dressed. Lacoste was always a very strong subcultural brand in the United Kingdom. Starting from wanting to adopt a certain uniform that either transformed you or meant something very different to who you were. Lacoste was really that brand, more than I think many other sports brands that I can remember. But [beyond this] I've always followed tennis so it's been a brand that I've connected to.
There's so much to Lacoste. How do you bring all those elements together? How do you create a product that has a fashion relevance but then is also commercially viable?
Lacoste has an incredibly rich archive and a strong heritage. But for me it's not just looking [at that] and going backwards. Lacoste’s strong identity allows you to be more playful as you have this heritage and classic base to come back to. I'm quite a pragmatic designer in any case, so I'm always thinking about how you wear it and that's very instinctive for me.
Commerciality for many people in the fashion industry is still a scary word. But I think it’s much more interesting to build a brand that actually makes products that many people can live their lives in, you know?
From the very beginning, clothes for me were always [meant] to be worn and enjoyed. That's how I came into fashion. The biggest kick I always got from clothes was seeing people in the street wearing my clothes. Then there’s this belief that as a designer we have an obligation to create things that people can wear and enjoy. Nothing annoys me more than clothes that don't perform or don't last. So when I wear clothes I'm judging clothes, how they feel, why they’re good, why they’re not. When it comes to style and commerciality, I don’t see those as being two completely different things. It’s just about creating great clothes that people can wear and enjoy, and through that, they’re commercial, right?
Then there’s the democratization of fashion as well. Luxury has never been so widely adopted.
Hugely. When I started in fashion, fashion wasn't for the masses. It wasn't the industry that it’s today. You were very loyal to a given designer. There was the Comme des Garçons crowd or the Margiela crowd. You really identified with a clan and you prescribed that fully. Today, I don't think anybody prescribes to any brand fully, at all. Fashion has become less about self expression and identifying. As it's become a huge industry, it’s become much more about [signaling] status. In some of that, we've lost that love of buying clothes that we can hold on to and find joy and purpose in.
Fashion has also lost its connection to culture in a way. I can own a piece from a brand and so can someone else and it will mean completely different things to us both.
You're right. The choices that people make have become very eclectic. What people wanted from luxury, certainly a certain generation, is very different today. How luxury and mass market brands position [themselves] now is also very different. You have people who buy Zara or Uniqlo but then also Hermès.
Unlike in the past, there’s no longer an information gap between groups when it comes to luxury. Outside of the high price points, it’s more accessible.
Absolutely. It's very true. Those barriers have kind of disappeared. How we interact with brands I think is changing massively. What consumers want from brands today is also changing.
How so?
I think more and more people are really connecting to what the value a brand brings and what they represent. People are connecting to that as much as to the aesthetic today, because there are many similar things available from many, many different brands. So consumers have to make choices [about] who they want to purchase from, connect with, and support. Even more so in the future as the way in which, and how much, we consume is going to be put into question.
Absolutely. What are those values for Lacoste and for you?
I think there’s a subliminal connection to the crocodile because of its strong values. It has this pop cultural status, but at the same time it's a very just and fair symbol. When we think about the brand, I think strongly about sporting values. About community, fair play, tenacity, joy. René [Lacoste] invented the polo shirt, he invented pique cotton. He was the first tennis player to take off his sartorial shirt to gain movement and freedom. That sense of that value around movement and freedom is something that I think people really see and gain when they buy into Lacoste.
As said, Lacoste represents different things to different people. You can imagine an older man who still wears his old Lacoste polo or a young person who has the latest runway piece or even a three year old might be wearing a little Lacoste polo. It transcends age or so many different things.
I think so. And I think it's because where a lot of symbols are more aspirational, I think the crocodile is more inspirational in the sense that it allows you to be the best version of you. You're not wearing it to become somebody else when you wear the crocodile.
Did you have someone to look up to while building your career?
There were certain women that I worked with or who I got to meet who I looked up to. There are women from when I was working for Whistles in the 90s, as well as working for Lucille Lewin who really inspired me as a woman who achieved and stood for a certain thing. It's really important that people can relate to you and that you don't abuse your position. I'm not the most talented designer, I know that. I would never claim to be the most talented designer. I'm really fortunate to be in this position because there are thousands of other designers who I think are more talented than me who perhaps didn't have the opportunities that I did. So, I'm very aware of that and thankful for that. I have no place and no time for anything other than just creating and working and fostering an environment that's good and positive and healthy.
Still, you're the first female creative director in Lacoste’s history. That means something.
It means a lot. Honestly. I'm pretty sure that I wasn't selected because I was a woman. But at the same time as a woman in this position you have a certain obligation. My parents never brought us up to have the belief there were barriers when it came to gender. I was brought up to believe that I could achieve what I wanted to achieve through a certain level of tenacity and a huge amount of hard work. I'm a mom, I have two girls, and I have a boy as well. I hope that I'm setting the same example for my kids, but also for other females who may look up to me or see what I do and be inspired and take note of the belief that they can do it too.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
