![]() It defeats the purpose of putting an animal - rather than some genteel shit like a polo player or a hood ornament or an ascot - on there in the first place. But these eagles and gulls and moose are just kind of … drab and boring. You get the feeling it lets loose at the annual animal logo mixer. That thing has some panache, some whimsy. Look at the Lacoste croc (spoiler: it’s way higher up the list). W: Here’s the issue with most of these newfangled animal logos: they’re too self-serious. ![]() Traditionally I’m very pro-eagle, I feel like if a brand I actually liked used this exact same thing I’d probably be into it. W: If Tommy Hilfiger were a country, I do not think I would voluntarily live there.ĭ: I’m gonna cop to a strong bias here - I think this brand is wack and phony and it totally colors my opinion of the logo. But the flag is a snooze - while I get that it’s meant to be sailing-inspired, it’s too plain and geometric to have any true joie de vivre. Tommy Hilfiger: Flagĭ: I’m actually down for Tommy as a brand, I think they make more interesting stuff than they get credit for and despite the four-alarm dumpster fire that is our nation currently, I still dig their strong America vibes. ![]() But it seems it’s just some mid-’90s marketer’s idea of paying homage to a past the company has otherwise divorced itself from. W: I was kind of hoping the Abercrombie moose had some meaningful origin story - the company started out as a sporting goods outfitter, after all. No regard for established polo embroidery size norms. Abercrombie & Fitch: Mooseĭ: Admittedly a moose is a pretty badass animal (they attack more people annually than bears do), but so many points deducted for the fact that A&F insisted on making these HUGE on their polos. I bet the world’s most geriatric condor could still gobble up the beau idéal of seagulls entire. W: If Hollister is Abercrombie with a vaguely “Californian” twist, they could have at least gone with a condor. That’s the fraught expression of an animal that knows it’s been conscripted into a life of playing Scrabble with its in-laws at their summer house in the Berkshires.ĭ: At least I think it’s a seagull? Could be a check mark. Also, please take note of the look on this whale’s face. Then I realized that said bozos tend to own not one, but 10, 20, 30 garments plastered with it. W: I initially assumed that the boat-shoed bozos who embrace this little cartoon whale were doing so with some sense of self-deprecation. It looks like you’re wearing a shirt from a daycare center. Vineyard Vines: Whaleĭ: It has zero gravitas. As warm weather approaches, let our largely arbitrary and heavily biased opinions be your guide as to which graces your chest. The ensuing years solidified the polo as arguably the most ubiquitous sportswear item of all time, favored by Ivy League preps and hip-hop habitues alike and manufactured by scores of brands - most electing to place an embroidered logo of their own in the traditional left-breast location.įrom tigers to crocs to penguins, boats to flags to whales, your correspondent and InsideHook’s editor-in-chief Walker Loetscher recently elected to debate and rank these logos from worst to best. The shirt and brand took off like rockets, became synonymous, and here we are. This was commonly referred to as a “tennis shirt” up until 1972, when Ralph Lauren introduced it as a staple of his Polo line, and stuck his now-iconic polo player logo on the left side of the chest in the fashion of Lacoste’s crocodile and Fred Perry’s laurel before him. It was tennis pro René Lacoste who was responsible for creating the “polo” as we know it today, deciding in 1926 that the aforementioned oxfords were too cumbersome for play and developing his own version: a short-sleeve made from loosely-knit (see: breathable) piqué cotton with a flat, soft collar that could be worn up to protect one’s neck from the sun. The garment that came to England from India (where the sport was invented) in the late 19th century was actually a long-sleeved oxford featuring buttons to secure the collar and keep it from flapping in the breeze as one galloped around the field. Nota bene: If you buy through the links in this article, we may earn a small share of the profits.įun fact: in terms of how it’s commonly applied today, the term “polo shirt” is a bit of a misnomer.
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