Lacoste in Selfridges takeover as tennis season gets under way

London’s Selfridges looks like the place to be for tennis/fashion fans over the next month. With its strong tennis heritage, Lacoste has staged a takeover of part of the Oxford Street space.

 
Not only has it taken over the department store’s rooftop Alto by San Carlo restaurant and terrace to temporarily open Le Club Lacoste, but it has also secured exclusive second-floor space to display its new summer runway collection.

“At the core of the takeover”, Lacoste celebrates a summer of sport at Selfridges by “honouring the timeless elegance, energy and dynamism of tennis that sits at the core of the brand’s DNA”.

Using the “texture and graphical qualities of the grass courts as a starting point”, the label has transformed the traditional tennis landscape into a “visually playful and captivating experience, honing in on the essence of movement”, we’re told. 
 
The rooftop terrace will also showcase livescreen tennis matches and will feature reference images from founder René Lacoste’s “significant tennis career and the first-ever Lacoste polo”. 

And in a “global retail exclusive”, Selfridges’ second floor atrium space will host the brand’s new runway collection by newly-appointed Creative Director Pelagia Kolotouros. 
 
First showcased on a runway at Paris’s Roland Garros stadium (where else?), the collection “embodies French elegance with a playful flair with strong tailoring, oversized outerwear, neo-bourgeois silk scarves, silk pleating, crisp lines and sharp graphics play up the dialogue between fashion, sport”.
 
As a final touch, visitors entering Selfridges will also see Lacoste displays in the store’s central windows. All will feature until 21 July