Before logos on clothing were normal, there was a crocodile. In the late 1920s, tennis champion René Lacoste was nicknamed "The Crocodile" — by some accounts for a bet over an alligator-skin suitcase, by others for his tenacious, never-let-go playing style. A friend drew him a crocodile, he had it embroidered onto his blazer, and when he launched a tennis shirt company in 1933, the reptile came with it.
One of the First Branded Garments
That embroidered crocodile is often cited as one of the earliest examples of a visible brand logo worn on the outside of clothing — decades before it became standard. It made the logo itself part of the product's value, which is exactly what turns a drawing into a powerful figurative trademark: customers buy the shirt partly because of the mark on it.
The logo has no descriptive link to shirts — a crocodile says nothing about cotton or tennis. That arbitrariness makes it inherently distinctive, the strongest category of trademark, and easy to enforce against copycats.
Enter the Rival Crocodile
Distinctiveness didn't make Lacoste's life simple. A separate company, Crocodile International — founded in Singapore and using its own crocodile logo across parts of Asia — set up a decades-long clash. Two crocodile marks, two companies, overlapping clothing markets, and a planet's worth of territorial trademark systems. The result was years of litigation and negotiation stretching across multiple countries.
The twist most people miss: the two crocodiles often face opposite directions and differ in styling. In trademark disputes over similar logos, small visual differences — and which company used the mark first in a given country — can decide who wins where.
How Two Crocodiles Learned to Coexist
Because trademark rights are territorial, the dispute didn't resolve into a single global winner. In some markets the companies reached coexistence arrangements — formal agreements that let both crocodiles operate by defining how each may appear, what it may sell, and where. Coexistence is often the pragmatic ending to disputes between two long-established marks that are each too entrenched in their own regions to simply erase the other.
Guarding the Reptile Today
Lacoste now runs an active global enforcement program, going after counterfeit crocodiles and lookalike reptilian logos on apparel worldwide. Like Adidas with its three stripes, the brand has learned that a simple, famous mark is both an asset and a target: the more recognisable the crocodile, the more people try to ride on it, and the more constant the policing has to be.
The Takeaway
Lacoste's crocodile shows how a personal nickname can become a multinational trademark — and how being distinctive is only half the battle. The other half is a world divided into separate trademark territories, where a rival mark can coexist legally in one region and be infringing in another. The crocodile didn't conquer the planet; it negotiated its borders.
FAQ
Why is the Lacoste logo a crocodile?
Tennis champion René Lacoste was nicknamed "The Crocodile" in the 1920s. He had a crocodile embroidered on his blazer, and when he co-founded his shirt company in 1933, the reptile became the brand's logo — one of the earliest visible clothing logos.
Is the Lacoste crocodile a registered trademark?
Yes. The crocodile is a registered figurative trademark, and because it has no descriptive connection to clothing, it is considered inherently distinctive and strongly enforceable.
Who is the rival crocodile brand?
Crocodile International, a company founded in Singapore, uses its own crocodile logo across parts of Asia. The two brands were involved in decades of trademark disputes, resolved in some markets through coexistence agreements.