Lacoste Algiers

Lacoste was founded in 1933 by René Lacoste, a French tennis player who won seven Grand Slam titles and an Olympic bronze medal, together with textile manufacturer André Gillier. Lacoste had designed a white, short-sleeved piqué cotton shirt with a flat collar and buttoned placket for his own on-court use starting in 1926; the production version became the L.12.12 (L for Lacoste, 1 for the fabric, 2 for short sleeve, 12 for the twelfth prototype selected). The crocodile logo stems from a nickname an American journalist gave Lacoste after a Davis Cup match in Boston, tied to a wagered crocodile-skin suitcase.

This listing is the Lacoste branch on Didouche Mourad, a well-known commercial street in central Algiers. The Algiers branch has no published store-specific history, so its useful context comes from Lacoste's founding story and the origins of the polo shirt and crocodile emblem.