Fashion companies frequently sponsor charity galas, but mostly to fund medical research for things like heart disease or HIV/AIDS. Usually they're not putting money toward saving animals, unless it involves a fancy party where they can bring their dogs dressed up in embarrassing outfits under the auspices of promoting pet adoption. It's not often they support saving reptiles, because they like to make bags, shoes, and purses out of them. However, Lacoste will spend $500,000 over the next three years to help preserve endangered crocodiles. They're a giant corporation, but a corporation with a heart. Besides, half a mil over three years isn't a whole lot for them to spend on a charitable marketing device.
Lacoste was talked into the scheme by the people at the Global Environment Facility, the World Bank, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature who run the "Save Your Logo Initiative." Lacoste is the first fashion company to sign on:
“We hope to be able to give back to our iconic crocodile — to whom we owe so much — a small part of what he has brought us,” [Lacoste president Michael] Lacoste said. “Seventy-five years ago, we were the first company to embroider a logo on apparel, and now we are the first company to support ‘Save Your Logo.’”
Much of Lacoste's croc-saving efforts will concentrate on the Gange gharial crocodile, of which only 1,400 are estimated to remain in the wild. Already Lacoste bigwigs are prancing around on the Indian subcontinent with their crisp, white, croc-emblazoned polos, taking pictures with the little guys. (Facebook!)
Save Your Logo says more than 300 large global brands use animals or plants threatened by dwindling biodiversity in their logos. And so it falls on Vineyard Vines to save the whales. You know anyone wealthy and foolish enough to buy these can afford it.
Read more: Lacoste Now Attempting to Save Crocodiles -- The Cut. New York Magazine.
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