Lacoste: A Pre-Teen Homage to De La Soul

Comments (0) By Nina Lalli Tuesday, Feb 7 2006

The Lacoste show, which started 40 minutes late and drew many well-connected pre-teenagers to the audience, featured a collection inspired by De La Soul's first album, Three Feet High and Rising. This is fitting—De La Soul made hip hop that white people loved, and Lacoste fuses tennis with street-wear, these days.

photo: Jennifer Snow

Rockin' out to De La Soul

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When the music started and the models began strutting in front of a huge, lit-up boom box design, I was alarmed to realize I remembered every word of the album, which came out in 1989. There seemed to be a generation gap in the front row. George Whipple yawned a few times. J.C. Chasez nodded his head deliberately. I'm not sure who I'd rather align myself with.

Later, I told my boyfriend about the De La Soul homage, and he asked if the collection consisted mostly of baggy shorts covered in cartoon daisies. Amazing as that would've been, the clothes actually looked more like they were copied from Jamel Shabazz's photographs in Back in the Days. Pants were tapered. Sneakers were like patent leather Stan Smiths. (Naturally, the laces were fat). The colors were bright. The hair was picked out. There were tracksuits and puffy coats. In short, what wasn't hideous was awesome.

Gift Bag: Weird rubbery tennis-ball shaped purse(?) with a blue-and-white seersucker shoulder bag inside.