These Couture Polo Shirts Took Up To 200 Hours to Make

Constance Jablonski in The Reality Show Magazine wearing a custom Lacoste x Lesage top. Photography by Alasdair McLellan

You will never look at the Lacoste polo shirt in the same way again. In the embodiment of couture cool, the French brand has collaborated with haute couture embroiderer Maison Lesage whose fairy-fingered “petites main” (tiny hands) typically work their magic on gazillion-dollar couture gowns. The resulting eight faux-oversized polo shirts and mini polo dresses are spectacular, with some calling for more than 200 hours of handiwork. A baseball style saw millions of itsy-bitsy sequins - gleaming like caviar - hand-knotted into place to spell out ‘La Veritable Chemise Lacoste’ (genuine Lacoste shirt), while a jungle polo comes festooned with PVC fronds and sequins in 20 shades of green.

“I like to do what I call my five-second drawings,” explained Lacoste’s artistic director Felipe Oliveira Baptista of his playful kindergarten-style artwork that features on everything from a Pac-Man-style design, its maze crafted from hundreds of hand-embroidered colored plastic tubes stood on end, to a long-sleeved purple shirt covered in super-cute embroidered doodles of crocs.

The snap-happy looks were unveiled at an exhibition at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo on Sunday night. Also on display was a photo series that will run in The Reality Show Magazine by Alasdair McLellan – “The Players” – starring eight established and emerging French talents in the creations: DJ Clara 3000, Emmanuelle Seigner, Karidja Touré, Laetitia Casta, Audrey Marnay, Cora Emmanuel, and Constance Jablonski, and dancer and choreographer Marie-Agnès Gillot.

Laetitia Casta in The Reality Show Magazine wearing a custom Lacoste x Lesage top. Photography by Alasdair McLellan

While a couture polo may not be for everyone’s budget, 200 orders have already been placed on four more commercial designs, available on order, sporting embroidered crocodiles climbing onto the collars of the shirts.

We caught up with Hubert Barrère, artistic director of Maison Lesage, to learn more about the unlikely project, which marks the 50th anniversary of the women’s version of the Lacoste polo shirt.

Yahoo Style: What did Maison Lesage want to achieve through this collaboration?

Hubert Barrère: To show that embroidery is a language that speaks to everybody, whether for couture, which is a laboratory for ideas to the highest level, sportswear or even clothing for youngsters. Embroidery has always existed and has always been highly contemporary so by working with Lacoste, Maison Lesage proves that it can bring its poetry and know-how to all sorts of fashion markets.

YS: It’s pretty major to take a project like this to coincide with couture week, no?

HB: Yes, the biggest challenge was getting it completed in time. We’ve been working on it for around two months.

Marie Agnes Gillot in The Reality Show Magazine wearing a custom Lacoste x Lesage top. Photography by Alasdair McLellan

YS: What was the most fun aspect of the project for you?

HB: There was a childlike lightness to it, and that was thanks to Felipe.

YS: Was there anything particularly unusual about his approach?

HB: Already the idea of doing embroidery on a polo shirt is pretty out there. And Felipe wasn’t interested in doing classic embroidery with little beads and sequins, his approach was highly innovative using modern materials like Plexiglas, latex mixed with crystals and sequins…

YS: Which piece took the longest to make?

HB: I have no idea because when you do something, you do it with love and passion. Accounting is not really my thing.

YS: Is it the goal of Paraffection, the Chanel subsidiary that owns Lesage as well as a range of other couture ateliers, to collaborate with more and more ‘young’ brands?

HB: Paraffection’s main mission has always been to remain close to creation, whether young or old. It’s not about age, it’s about creativity.

YS: How did the Lesage embroiderers react to the project?

HB: As long as it’s a creative adventure they’re always happy, whatever the project.

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