It all begins with play
On 14 March 2022 Lacoste and Minecraft present a collaboration that connects the Maison's tennis-courts heritage to the Microsoft-owned sandbox game. The line, framed under the slogan "It all begins with play", is built around a co-designed Spring/Summer 2022 collection, a free in-game map called Croco Island and a public launch event in central Paris. The two brands argue that the meeting point between them is a shared philosophy of mutual aid and self-expression, and they extend that argument from the screen to the wardrobe in a single coordinated drop.
The collaboration sits within a wider 2021 to 2022 wave of fashion partnerships that have begun to treat games as cultural platforms rather than as media buys. Lacoste's choice of Minecraft is significant. The game has run for more than a decade with an open user-generated economy, an audience that spans children to adults and a visual language that turns every object into a 16-bit cube. By accepting that grammar, Lacoste agrees to let its crocodile be re-rendered as pixels rather than embroidered piqué, an editorial concession that few luxury or premium brands had made at that point.
Croco Island
The flagship asset of the collaboration is Croco Island, a Minecraft map developed for the launch and made available worldwide for free, with a downloadable content version released on 15 March. The map turns elements of the real Lacoste world into Minecraft architecture: a city block, a forest, a beach and a tennis court, all watched over by a giant crocodile in the background that serves as a guardian figure for the team spirit at the heart of the brief. The map is designed for parkour and exploration, with paths that route players through each environment in turn rather than concentrating play in a single arena.
The headline players for the launch are gaming streamers Atomicmari and Shubble, music artist Brawk and video creator Smajor, who each bring a distinct community to the event. Their virtual paths cross on the map across the Saturday session, in line with the collaboration's idea that play is a discovery of the self in the company of others. The casting follows the logic of fashion, in that each personality is treated as a wearer rather than as an endorser, and the editorial decisions are organised around their existing styles rather than around a brand-led storyboard.
A 360-degree wardrobe with a pixelated crocodile
The Lacoste x Minecraft Spring/Summer 2022 collection is a full wardrobe for men, women and children. It mixes Lacoste signature pieces such as the printed polo, the monochrome sweatshirt and the cap with a giant crocodile, alongside more sportswear-driven items including logoed sports bras and tapered leggings. Each garment carries the Minecraft pixel grid as a graphic device, and the crocodile itself has been redrawn and pixelated by the Minecraft Creative Studio, with iconic quotes from both brands around the notion of play printed on selected pieces.
The product approach reflects the structural logic of the collaboration rather than a simple capsule add-on. Where many fashion-game partnerships focus on a single hero piece or a small drop, Lacoste positions the line as a complete seasonal wardrobe whose pieces happen to be co-branded. That decision distributes the collaboration across the everyday rotation of customers, rather than locking it into a collector category, and it allows the partnership to be read as a conversation between two design grammars rather than as a one-off marketing exchange.
From virtual to real at the E-Spot
The launch is staged on Saturday 12 March 2022 at the E-Spot, a gaming venue on Rue de Rivoli in Paris, where 400 guests gather to play and to discover the collection in person. The event is streamed live on Twitch, extending the participation beyond the room and into the established viewing habits of the Minecraft community. The stream and the on-site programme run side by side, with the same map, the same hosts and the same collection serving both audiences in real time. A replay of the broadcast remains accessible after the event for fans who join the conversation later.
The 14 March press release announces a 16 March retail and online release for the collection, with the Croco Island downloadable content arriving the day before. That sequence is editorial in itself. The event seeds the story, the digital asset opens the universe and the product follows on the customer's regular shopping rhythm. The collaboration thereby compresses three traditional launch types, an in-person event, a digital experience and a retail drop, into a five-day arc that gives each format its own moment without scattering attention.
Read alongside the broader 2022 Lacoste calendar, which culminates in the BETC brand campaign on the crocodile as a rallying sign, the Minecraft partnership operates as the year's first proof point for a Maison that is widening its idea of who wears the crocodile and where. Lacoste does not abandon tennis or the Maison's French codes in the process. It extends them into a new community by letting the crocodile be rebuilt, pixel by pixel, on someone else's terms.
Source: Lacoste Youtube
