Familiarity breeds contentment: How brand ubiquity trumps standing out
Familiarity breeds contentment: How brand ubiquity trumps standing out
Lynette Nylander is a writer, editor and creative consultant. Named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in media in 2017, she is currently the US Editorial Director of Dazed. She regularly contributes to titles such as Vogue, Frieze, AnOther Magazine, Evening Standard, and T Magazine and she has spoken at the British Film Institute, Victoria and Albert Museum, Smithsonian Museum, Selfridges and Central Saint Martins. Observing subcultures and trends for over 10 years, and inspired by Lacoste’s Unexpected Encounters, Lynette Nylander pens a note to the nature of modern day trends and how we might have arrived here.
What makes a trend?
Is it time? Enduring repetition? Speedy momentum?
Perhaps all of the above, but it's almost inexplicable in its phenomenon.
What can readily become a piece of enduring cultural iconography can just as easily be relegated to a dust-filled corner of a discount bin, never to be seen again. Zeitgeist undoubtedly has a part to play, but how can rubber-toed canvas sneakers, the logo-laden elastic of a pair of underwear or the crest on a polo shirt bring together seemingly disparate communities, transcending race, age, and socio-economic status?
Is it who wears what? Is it when? Or is it why?
I have spent most of my career trying to figure this out. In fact, i-D magazine, which I was lucky enough to deputy edit, was born out of the rise and rise of subcultures. Terry Jones, its founder, acted on the foresight – even back in 1980 – that our clothes are not purely functional. They are our armour, our belonging and our identity. Transformed by music, locale and the way its wearer lives, we’ve seen Levi’s dress bikers, rock ’n’ roll musicans and doo-wop crooners, Ralph Lauren reposition preppy Americana for all who felt they belonged. and now, Lacoste is redefining and rewriting the story of a crocodile – first sewn onto a white jacket in the 1930s – as a symbol of unity and belonging.
“What can readily become a piece of enduring cultural iconography can just as easily be relegated to a dust-filled corner of a discount bin, never to be seen again.”
In the 9th Arrondissement of Paris, French landmark Palais Garnier vie for attention with the nearby Pigalle and its red light district and world famous Moulin Rouge. The area is equal parts grit and gitz. The billboard for Lacoste’s latest campaign hangs adjacent to the nearby Opera Metro métro station on a recent visit during fashion week. The specificity of its position isn’t lost on me; a meeting place for tourists and locals, young and old. Incepted to celebrate the French brand’s 90th anniversary, the Unexpected Encounters campaign, shot by Irish photographer Ronan Gallagher, captures surprising moments of strangers meeting, dressed in identical items of Lacoste clothing and becoming, even for a brief moment, neighbours. In one image, a young child keenly emulates the nonchalant way a nearby skater wears a navy bucket hat. In another vignette, a silver-haired older woman and young street smart Gen Z-er both exist outside changing rooms wearing matching powder-pink Lacoste polos with their iconic crocodile emblem.
Unexpected Encounters, BETC Paris
The campaign instantly radiates familiarity, warmth and whimsy – a savvy reminder that in our everyday lives, more unites than we might remember. It’s fitting for the brand, which since 1933 has produced the polo tennis shirt that Rene Lacoste wore on the court for players and fashion fans alike to furious popularity. Lacoste’s direction has veered from previous Creative Director Christophe Lemaire’s paired-down sensibility to the colourful geometric approach of Felipe Oliveira Baptista, yet the Lacoste polo has remained largely unchanged from its original design; piqué cotton, half-front placket and short sleeves, both a symbol of aspirational and attainable luxury that’s moved far away from its beginnings on the tennis courts.
I will admit, until I spent hours rationalising the genius of this campaign for this piece, I hadn’t fully appreciated what a constant Lacoste had been in my own life. Pimply boys I swooned at on the back of the bus wore light blue Lacoste polos with a popped up collar for affect, and their Carnaby trainers worn with a thick white sock could make or break style rankings in my teenage years. Lacoste is an outfitter to people from all walks of life. I have always, even if I hadn’t directly bought it, thought that Lacoste was a brand that was for me, if I so wanted. This is particularly impressive, because fashion has never done particularly well making everyone feel included. In fact, fashion loves to sell inadequacy to would-be consumers that can only be solved with purchase of a new top. But by trying to appeal to everyone, you’d surely appeal to no one.
In a world where brands largely fight to carve a niche and define their customer, Lacoste cleverly bucked exclusivity for a come-as-you-are inclusivity which celebrates its global appeal. It makes perfect sense. Lacoste’s influence doesn’t just sit with one group: Hamptons preppy types wear it to afternoon tennis lessons, Justin Bieber wore a white polo to his rehearsal dinner and the brand reverence has reached as far as Brazil, where Lacosteiros, a funk, rap and trap music loving community found at Bailes Funk street parties in São Paolo, exclusively wear vintage Lacoste pieces they lovingly source and exchange with each other. The group featured in an extension of the 90th anniversary campaign earlier this year. Brands that endure these days need to go this far and wide. To be visible: think globally but act hyper locally.
“Brands that endure these days need to go this far and wide. To be visible: think globally but act hyper locally.”
For me, the Unexpected Encounters campaign calls to mind the observational work Exactitudes, an on-going photo series/project by photographer Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek. The collaborators have spent almost 30 years trying to visually decode cultural characteristics and sartorial and beauty signifiers; documenting strangers from Casablanca to Beijing, grouping them together and showcasing their uncanny likeness. The project found millennial and Gen Z reverence when fashion brands channelled their influence: Demna Gvasalia cited the project as inspo for a 2017 Vetements collection, and the duo shot a campaign for Helmut Lang Re-Edition in 2018. In the campaign, which featured Helmut Lang collectors and fans, showed Solange Knowles, dressed in black T-shirt, staring starkly into the lens beside comparable unknowns – the stylistic uniformity of these images making it unclear whether they were from the early 1990s or today if the images were imagined or coincidental. As Y2K trends prevail, archival and historical fashion imagery mingles with more modern references, social media selfies and ‘fit pics’ mirror this, parodying the shrinking gap between similarity and difference.
Thanks to social media, our proximity to each other – and the cultural bubblings we might have been oblivious to – have made it much more difficult to know when something is a genuine movement. I can virtually attend concerts I’d otherwise never have heard of, speak with people I’ve never met about it and order an overnight delivery of the concert T-shirt. Subcultures, in a way, are obsolete. Gen Z cherry-pick and borrow from the best of the 1970s, 1980, 1990s and 2000s and dodge defining labels in support of unity through experience. This isn’t to say this is a bad thing, there's democracy when things are open to interpretation. Neither are young people beholden to need to fit into a particular crew, as perhaps their predecessors did.
The Lacoste campaign features people of all ages, from infancy to their eighties, in a refreshing breadth of casting. This is notable because I have noticed that fashion has been at odds with itself lately. As it hurtles forward, the public want people who look and feel familiar to them, while brands stay committed to being purveyors of fantasy. Industry-wide conversations about representation and promises of more diversity have stalled, meanwhile levels of model diversity are taking a spiralling tumble in the wrong direction. The cast of the Lacoste campaign is testament to keeping it real and that cool is connected much more to mindset than it is any particular type of person. The campaign largely used streetcasted people who hadn’t modelled before, adding to its charm and the conveyance of authenticity without feeling forced. Moreover, the campaign didn’t shy away from projecting happiness. In fact, it was unashamedly designed to make people smile. A signifier that perhaps in a world of unpredictability and volatility, these moments of levity still exist, and perhaps, may just happen to you if you look around. And isn’t that we are all looking for? Ways in which we can connect. Connect with friends, connect with strangers and make our everyday that little bit more full of joy.
While trends have become fleeting and the melting point of culture has made it harder to define who or what sits at the forefront, maybe celebrating coincidence is just as good as standing out.
In the case of Lacoste, familiarity breeds feeling content. And I am all for it.