The Dark Story of Lacoste: The $1 Billion Fashion Empire Destroyed By Its Own Family

Every logo you have ever worn on the outside of your clothes exists because of one man. Not a designer. A French tennis player with ruined lungs, told at twenty-five that he would never compete again. In nineteen thirty-three René Lacoste took the crocodile that had been his nickname and did something nobody had ever done. He put it on the outside of the shirt, where everyone could see it. It is widely held to be the first brand mark in history worn on the exterior of a garment, and it changed how the entire world dresses. Seventy-nine years later, his own descendants gave it away. In September of two thousand and twelve, the board of Lacoste elected Sophie Lacoste-Dournel as president. She was thirty-six. Her father, Michel Lacoste, was sixty-nine, and he refused to accept it. He went to Le Monde and told the country his own daughter was not capable of running a business. He took her to court. And when he could not win the boardroom, he sold his shares to a Swiss group in Geneva, which set the price and started a clock his daughter could not beat. Eight weeks later, after nearly eighty years, no member of the Lacoste family owned any part of Lacoste. There was no bankruptcy. There was no crime. There was a father and a daughter who could not agree on who should sit in a chair. Was Michel Lacoste protecting his father's company from someone he believed could not run it, or did he burn it down because he could not stand losing it to his own daughter. Tell me in the comments, and argue it properly, because I read them. Subscribe for more of the dark histories behind the world's greatest names. Prefer to listen. Every episode of House of Ruin is on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0341KDmqM7bgOqIwaJduBZ Every episode is researched from documented history, court filings and contemporary reporting. Where accounts differ, that is stated in the narration. This channel covers the real histories of famous names and is not affiliated with, endorsed b