Reference / Case study 32 / Fashion & beauty
Lacoste: women were already wearing the brand — the question was what they were doing with it
The project covered supporting the definition of the relevant female archetype and its associated target audience, in order to strengthen Lacoste's positioning and future development in the women's segment.
- Client
- Lacoste
- Industry
- Fashion & beauty
- Expertise
- Brand archetypes · Target definition · Brand positioning · Workshop
- Object
- Relevant female archetype and target for developing the women's segment
- Geography
- Europe
- Engagement type
- Defining the female archetype and target supporting positioning and future development
- Consultant
- Aurélie Plessier
- Case No.
- 32
- LED AT
- Brainvalue
Context
Lacoste: women were already wearing the brand — the question was what they were doing with it
A brand born from a tennis champion, whose emblem is a crocodile and whose founding product is a polo shirt designed for the court, carries codes that are not gendered in themselves but that are read by default as masculine. Developing a women's segment in that configuration is not a range extension exercise.
The classic error is to create a feminine version: different cuts, softened colours, adjusted narrative. It almost always fails, for a simple reason — the women already wearing the brand had not chosen it despite its codes, but often because of them. Conclusions and proprietary client data are not disclosed.
A brand born on a court: Lacoste was born from the gesture of a tennis champion, René Lacoste, nicknamed the Crocodile, who gave the brand its emblem and its founding product: a polo shirt designed for play, lighter and freer than the shirts of the time.
Those codes — the crocodile, the polo shirt, the sporting wardrobe, a certain idea of French elegance — are not gendered in nature. They are nonetheless read by default as masculine, because they come from a man, a sport and an era when the women's wardrobe was written elsewhere.
The real starting point: A brand established for decades never approaches a women's segment on a blank page. Women already wear the brand, have appropriated its codes and given them a meaning the brand did not decide. Ignoring that existing appropriation means inventing a customer who does not need inventing.
Why feminising does not work: The most immediate answer to a shortfall in the women's segment is to produce a feminine version of what exists: closer cuts, a softened palette, a gentler narrative. It almost always fails, for a reason worth stating.
Women who wear a sporting-wardrobe brand generally did not choose it despite its codes but because of them: the sharpness, the absence of ornament, the owned functionality, the possibility of not declaring anything. Softening those codes removes precisely what motivated the choice, without convincing those who had not made it.
The real challenge of the engagement: The likely strategic challenge was therefore to start from existing appropriation rather than from an intention: to understand what women already do with these codes, what they find in them, and what that says about an archetype the brand can legitimately carry.
An archetype obtained that way is not invented for the occasion: it is recognised. That is what gives it strength and what makes it defensible internally.
A target that does not narrow the brand: Target definition poses a particular risk on a brand with a broad audience. Too narrow a target excludes part of the current customer base; too broad a target guides no decision. The useful exercise is to describe a stance rather than a demographic bracket, so as to guide creation without closing the door.
The balance with heritage: Finally, any development of the women's segment has to remain compatible with what makes the brand what it is for all its audiences. A brand whose heritage is unisex cannot split into two parallel narratives without losing what made it singular.
The work was framed around questions of this kind:
Lacoste's codes are not masculine. They are read as masculine, which is an entirely different thing and is worked on differently.
Strategic challenge
The questions that structured the work
Our approach
From analysis to usable decisions
Observe existing appropriation
Look at how women already wear the brand, in which contexts and with what. It is the richest observation and the one most often neglected in favour of declarative research.
Look for the stance, not the demographics
Identify what those women share beyond age, income and style: a relationship to being looked at, a way of dressing for oneself, an owned economy of means.
Formulate the archetype through its tension
Describe the figure by what it puts at stake rather than by its attributes. An archetype without tension produces conventional imagery and guides no creative decision.
Check what the codes become on women
Test each brand code to establish which gains, which loses and which changes meaning when worn by a woman. It is a question of reading, not of cut.
Define a target that guides without excluding
Express the target as a recognisable stance rather than a closed segment, so as to guide creation without depriving the brand of its current audience.
Research and work conducted
What the engagement covered
- The second question is the most productive. How a piece is worn — assembled, repurposed, combined — reveals more about the meaning it has taken on than any statement of intent.
- The approach rests on one principle: for an established brand you do not create a female archetype, you recognise the one its customers have already built.
- The feminine-version reflex: The most intuitive answer — adjust, soften, recolour — is also the least effective. Countering it requires observed evidence rather than a position of principle.
- The default reading of codes: Ungendered codes can be read as masculine through collective habit alone. That is not a property of the code but a convention of reading, and it is worked on through usage rather than through product.
- The risk of splitting the brand: Developing a segment by building a parallel narrative weakens a brand whose heritage is unisex. Overall coherence is a design constraint, not a secondary consideration.
- A target that excludes: An overly precise target definition on a broad-audience brand can push current customers out. The risk is real and rarely anticipated.
- Saturation of the women's wardrobe: The stances available in women's fashion are largely occupied. Checking what competitors already carry is a prerequisite, failing which the chosen archetype will be sound and invisible.
- The gap between stated and worn: What women say about a brand and what they do with it often differ. Only observation of real usage reconciles the two.
Business value
A reading that makes trade-offs easier
Development that does not lose current customers
Starting from existing appropriation avoids the most expensive error: winning a new audience at the cost of the one you already had, without even having measured it.
An archetype defensible internally
A figure recognised in real usage is easier to defend than one invented in a workshop. It survives changes of team and successive trade-offs.
Better-directed creation
An archetype expressed through its tension gives product and image teams usable material, where a demographic target says nothing about what should be created.
A brand that stays whole
Developing the women's segment inside the brand's narrative, rather than alongside it, preserves what makes a unisex brand singular.
Deliverables
Objects teams can use beyond the engagement
- A reading of existing appropriation by the women already wearing the brand.
- An analysis of what the brand's codes become when worn by women.
- A formulation of the relevant female archetype, expressed through its tension.
- A target definition built on a stance rather than a demographic bracket.
- A map of the archetypes already occupied by competitors in the women's wardrobe.
- Positioning implications for developing the segment.
- Coherence principles ensuring the women's segment does not split the brand.
Key learnings
What this case makes clear
- Ungendered codes can be read as masculine through convention. That is not a property of the code but a habit of reading.
- Softening a brand's codes to appeal to women removes what had convinced the women already wearing it.
- On an established brand, the female archetype is not invented: it is recognised in existing usage.
- How a piece is worn says more about its meaning than any brand narrative.
- A target expressed as a stance guides creation; a demographic target closes the door without guiding anything.
- Developing a segment through a parallel narrative weakens a brand whose heritage is unisex.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How do you develop the women's segment of a brand perceived as masculine?
By starting from what women already do with the brand rather than from an intention to conquer. An established brand never approaches a segment on a blank page: women wear it, have appropriated its codes and given them a meaning the brand did not decide. Observing that real usage — how pieces are worn, combined, repurposed — reveals an archetype that does not need inventing, only recognising. A recognised archetype is easier to defend internally and survives changes of team better.
Why does feminising a product not work?
Because it removes what motivated the choice. Women who wear a sporting-wardrobe brand generally did not choose it despite its codes but because of them: the sharpness, the absence of ornament, the owned functionality, the possibility of not declaring anything. Adjusting cuts, softening the palette and the narrative removes precisely those qualities, without convincing those who had not chosen the brand. The most frequent result is an offer that disappoints current customers without recruiting new ones.
How do you define a target without narrowing a brand?
By describing a stance rather than a demographic bracket. On a broad-audience brand, too precise a target pushes current customers out; too broad a target guides no decision. A stance — a relationship to being looked at, a way of dressing for oneself, an economy of means — is recognisable by people very different in age and background, while giving creative teams a usable criterion. It guides without closing.
How do brand codes change meaning depending on who wears them?
A code has no meaning in itself: it acquires one through use. A tennis polo, an animal emblem, a functional cut are neutral in nature, but their default reading depends on the history that established them. Worn by a different audience, in other contexts and combined with other pieces, they can gain force, lose it, or change meaning entirely. Establishing which of those three applies to each code is a work of observation, not of product design.
What is a relevant female archetype for a brand?
A figure describing a stance shared by the women already wearing the brand, expressed through the tension it puts at stake rather than through its attributes. An archetype without tension — the free, strong, authentic woman — produces conventional imagery and guides no decision. A relevant archetype must also pass two tests: being credible against the brand's heritage, and not already being occupied by a competitor in the same wardrobe.