Rene Lacoste

Who hasn't looked at a piece of clothing or an accessory and not noticed a logo staring them clear in the face? A recent WSJ A-Hed piece describes the lengths some buyers go to have their cake and eat it too. Have the designer duds, but remove the logo. Tricky, because these things are not meant to be removed.

Some buyers of course want the logo, and it is the garment with the logo that has attracted them in the first place. They want the purported exclusivity that wearing the garment will infer to those who see them wearing it.

My youngest daughter recently was shopping with her mother. This is what mothers and daughters do of course, nearly as soon as the child can walk. I just finished watching a Smithsonian Channel series called 'Polar Bear Town' on polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, hard by the edge of Hudson Bay, a frozen Hudson Bay. A segment of it included sought-after footage of the mother polar bear popping up out of the winter den after six months of hibernation, and soon being followed by two polar bear cubs, outside the den for the first time in their lives. If mama polar walked toward town and a Marshall's I would not have been at all surprised.

Wherever my wife and daughter were my daughter noticed a Lonchamp bag that apparently caught her eye. I once bought her a Longchamp tote, but apparently this was more of a purse. It was a cool $500, and my daughter didn't buy it for too reasons. The cost rendered a non-purchase a no-brainer, and the appearance of the name Longchamp in a size that could be read at 50 feet by someone who needed glasses. My daughter, like many shoppers, doesn't want to be a walking ad.

Like most A-Hed pieces, this one is a fun read, written by Khadeeja Safdar, a retail reporter, specializing in reporting on brick and mortar and online stores. The crocodile logo of the Lacoste tennis shirts is discussed, along with Ralph Lauren's polo player, Ray-Ban sunglasses and the Abercrombie moose.

Also mentioned are distinguishing feature of Brooks Brothers shirts, that can sport their logo of a sheep-in-a-sling, or not. Paul Stuart shirts can come with their flat capped country gentleman sitting on a fence. At least with these two retailers, you can buy their product with or without logo. To me, the annoying part of a Brooks Brothers shirt is that a great deal of them are button-down collars, a style Brooks claims to have perfected back in the day so that polo players wouldn't have their collars flapping in their faces as they thundered down the field on their ponies.

Whether the Lacoste shirt displays an alligator, or a crocodile depends on what country you're in. In the U.S. it is an alligator, in France it is a crocodile. There are a few explanation as to why Lacoste was nicknamed the "crocodile."

Rene offered an explanation that it had to do with a bet he had with the French Davis Cup captain. Win the match, and get a crocodile (or alligator) skin piece of luggage. Supposedly when
U.S. newspapers learned of the bet, they nicknamed Rene the "bitch" and "the crocodile" for his skill and tenacity on the court which lead him to never give up during a game.

The origin I heard from someone years and years ago in my old neighborhood from an old-timer who was in New York's rag trade was that Rene Lacoste got the crocodile nickname because of his "crocodile tears" that he exhibited on the court when he argued an umpire's or linesman's call. He well may have been tenacious, but why associate tenacity with a crocodile if there wasn't something to the "crocodile tears" metaphor?

Origins of words and phrases have many fathers. Crocodile tears is said to mean putting on an expression of insincere sympathy, itself derived from the belief that a crocodile's eyes tear up as they are eating their prey. "Tears of joy might stain my face..." I guess.

Rene Lacoste played a long time ago, so there is no one left who I can ask who might have seen him play and who could describe his on-court attitude.

And phrase origins can certainly be from "urban legends." Consider the kids I knew growing up who would tell anyone who listened that the long-ago store "E. J. Korvette's" was named after eight Jewish Korean war veterans, rather than by someone who served in the Navy and served duty on a "corvette," a small warship.

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