Long before Challengers made tennis sexy, the Lacoste polo shirt made it stylish. Around a century ago, French racquet phenom René Lacoste, fatefully nicknamed “The crocodile”, popularized the polo shirt as we know it, as a way to blend hard-wearing performance with easygoing style. Almost 100 years later, the brand that bears his name still makes one of the best versions of the product category it invented. (For proof, just ask Jeremy Allen White.)
In 2024, Lacoste’s signature design features its telltale short button placket, elegant collar, and ribbed sleeves, done up in a now-legendary cotton pique fabric that has endeared it to prepsters and punks in equal measure. It’s sturdy and soft, beefy but breathable, and a testament to the brand’s sovereignty decades into its reign. “When I think of the polo shirt,” says GQ senior commerce editor Avidan Grossman, “I think of Lacoste. It’s as simple as that.” He’s been wearing Lacoste’s genre-defining pique polo on and off for decades, and touts its crisp feel, timeless look, and universally flattering cut.