In March 2018 Lacoste removed its green crocodile from a polo shirt for the first time in the brand’s history. For a limited collection made with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and its Save Our Species programme, the crocodile was replaced by ten threatened animals, each embroidered in the same green style. The polos were unveiled on 1 March 2018 at Lacoste’s show during Paris Fashion Week, and the whole run sold out almost immediately.
The clever part was the numbers. Each species got only as many shirts as the estimated number of individuals then left in the wild, from 30 for the vaquita porpoise to 450 for the Anegada ground iguana, giving 1,775 polos in total. The idea came from the French advertising agency BETC, and proceeds went to the IUCN as part of a three-year partnership.
Lacoste summed up the gesture in one line: “For the endangered species of this world, the crocodile abandons its ancestral place.” The gallery below shows the collection, shirt by shirt, with what each animal is and what has happened to it since.
The crocodile and why changing it mattered
The crocodile goes back to tennis champion René Lacoste, winner of seven Grand Slam singles titles in the 1920s. Popular history says American journalists nicknamed him “the Alligator” after a bet over an alligator-skin suitcase, and a friend later embroidered a crocodile on his blazer. When he co-founded his shirt company in 1933, the crocodile went onto the chest, making it one of the earliest visible clothing logos. By 2018 it had appeared on Lacoste polos for 85 years.
Lacoste had played with the crocodile before, in collaborations with Peter Saville and the Campana brothers, but never removed it. Swapping it for an animal the buyer might never have heard of turned the logo into a question: what is this, and why are there so few?
The collection at a glance
A stack of the ten polos shows every logo side by side: a porpoise, a rhino, a turtle, a primate, a bird of prey, a parrot, a lizard, a gibbon, an antelope-like saola and a big cat. Seen together, the shirts read as one family, because Lacoste’s studio kept the crocodile’s colour, size and embroidery technique.
Each shirt came in a presentation box printed with the silhouettes of all ten animals and short notes about them. The packaging turned a piece of clothing into a small educational card about the species it carried.
This close-up of the Javan rhino patch shows the level of detail in the embroidery. The aim was to make a buyer look twice and ask what the animal was, the same way people instantly recognise the crocodile.
The ten species, shirt by shirt
Vaquita. The world’s smallest porpoise lives only in the northern Gulf of California, Mexico. Lacoste made just 30 vaquita shirts, the smallest batch, reflecting the 2018 estimate. Drowning in illegal gillnets set for totoaba fish has pushed it lower still: surveys in 2024 counted only about 6 to 11 animals.
Javan rhinoceros. Once found across Southeast Asia, it now survives only in Ujung Kulon National Park at the western tip of Java, Indonesia. About 67 animals were thought to remain in 2018. In 2024 arrested poachers confessed to killing 26 rhinos, a potential loss of a third of the population, although new calves have also been recorded.
Burmese roofed turtle. This river turtle from Myanmar was believed extinct until two small groups were found again in 2001. By 2018 fewer than ten wild adults were documented, so its future rests on captive breeding: about 1,000 turtles are held in Myanmar zoos and conservation centres, and some have been released into the Chindwin River.
Northern sportive lemur. Also called the northern weasel lemur, this small nocturnal primate lives in a few patches of dry forest in northern Madagascar. Habitat loss from clearing and charcoal production makes it one of the most endangered primates on Earth. On this shirt it appears perched upright with its long tail curled below.
California condor. North America’s largest land bird was down to a couple of dozen individuals by 1987, when the last wild condor was taken into captivity. Captive breeding and releases in California, Arizona, Utah and Baja California brought the world population to about 607 by late 2025, though lead poisoning from ammunition fragments remains its biggest threat. Its embroidered version spreads its broad wings in flight.
Kākāpō. New Zealand’s flightless, nocturnal parrot is the heaviest parrot in the world. Lacoste made 157 kākāpō shirts, matching the count at the time. Thanks to an intensive recovery programme on predator-free islands, the population passed 240 in 2024, and the Department of Conservation reported more than 300 birds after the 2026 breeding season.
Anegada ground iguana. Found only on Anegada in the British Virgin Islands, this large rock iguana was hit hard by feral cats and grazing livestock. With about 450 animals estimated in 2018, it got the largest batch of shirts. Head-starting programmes, which raise young iguanas until they are big enough to survive, have helped it.
Cao-vit gibbon. Also known as the eastern black crested gibbon, it lives in karst forest in Cao Bằng province, northern Vietnam, and an adjoining patch of Guangxi, China. It was feared lost until biologists found a small group in 2002, and the Vietnamese population was estimated at only 35 to 37 animals in 2005. Its name comes from the sound of its calls.
Saola. Discovered by science only in 1992 in the Annamite Mountains of Vietnam and Laos, the saola has never been observed by a trained scientist in the wild, and the last camera-trap photo dates from 2013. Lacoste produced 250 saola polos, within a very uncertain estimate of 50 to 300 animals. Wire snares set for other animals are its main threat.
Sumatran tiger. The last tigers of the Sunda islands live only on Sumatra, Indonesia. Lacoste made 350 of these shirts. Poaching for skins and body parts and the clearing of forest for plantations are the main dangers it faces.
Packaging and campaign video
The boxed presentation and short campaign film showed the shirts as collector’s pieces rather than ordinary polos, which helped explain why they sold for around $185 each and disappeared within hours. The film was used at launch and widely shared online.
Did a logo swap help wildlife?
The money raised from 1,775 shirts was modest compared with the cost of protecting even one of these species. The bigger value was attention. Fashion media, news sites and social platforms that rarely cover conservation suddenly explained what a vaquita or a saola is. Some of the species featured have improved since, notably the kākāpō, while others, especially the vaquita and the Javan rhino, are in even more danger.
The shirt numbers were a snapshot of 2018 estimates, not a live count, and population figures for these animals change as new surveys are done. If the campaign inspired you, the most useful step is to support organisations working directly on the ground for these species, and to check current IUCN Red List assessments before sharing figures.
For another story about fashion and recognition, read Bihor Couture: A Campaign About Traditional Design and Recognition.
Sources: Dezeen, 2 March 2018, TODAY: Why Lacoste is replacing its crocodile logo, Wikipedia: René Lacoste, Wikipedia: Vaquita, Wikipedia: Kākāpō, Wikipedia: Javan rhinoceros, Wikipedia: California condor, Wikipedia: Saola, Wikipedia: Eastern black crested gibbon, Wikipedia: Burmese roofed turtle. Photos: Lacoste / BETC campaign images.
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