The Lacoste Power Serve: my dream comes true

Phase one: is someone pulling a wind up on me? 
 
When I started the blog, I had no real way of knowing what kind of reach or interest it
had outside of the pickleball community. I’d had lots of comments on Facebook and
in person about the posts: the tournament prep blog was a huge hit with people.
Outside of that, it’s hard to tell if you are broadcasting to a fairly empty “room”.  Well,
it was until the day before the English Open 2023…
 
I was trawling through my emails after a busy day commentating on Thursday’s
DUPR team event, plus some warm up play. Something stuck out of my Advanced
Pickleball emails. I had to read it twice and do a little Google/LinkedIn checking
before believing it was real. One of my blogs on shoes had got noticed. Really
noticed. REALLY noticed. A very well known fashion and sports brand with a long
legacy had emailed me, looking to explore how I could support them in launching a
new product. 
 
I needed to park my excitement, focus on the events and marched ahead but still
send a reply wanting to engage. I toddled off to do a bit of research on their existing
performance shoes, figuring out the model where I thought they would build their
shoe off of. A week later, I was on a Teams call with a significant portion of the
footwear design team, the specific product designer plus the product line manager.
An hour later, I’d been able to give some honest feedback on the shoe market for
tennis and pickleball shoes.  A pair of their tennis shoes would be on the way to me
shortly for testing and evaluation for pickleball.  I was also going to meet them at
their head office, look to explore their project more and do a pop up court activation
for the project team, as well as the wider office staff.
 
I diligently wore the shoes for a number of sessions and logged feedback from just
an initial try on in the living room, a couple of lighter sessions and all day wear at a
festival.  Some of my regulars commented on yet another new pair of shoes I had
but for the first time ever, I hadn’t paid for them! This also greatly pleased Mrs W. 
Now a difficulty presented itself to me: I found the shoes lacking in a couple of areas
that I’d like as a player. However, that is about me and not everyone else who buys
shoes. Every shoe has a market and maybe this one wasn’t for me. When I go to
see them, how honest can I be without possibly ruining a future relationship? I
decided to put on my “big boy pants” and be open about it: they reached out to me
based on my expertise. If I don’t share my experience or knowledge, what value do I
bring to them anyway and why would they engage with me for the future? I’d share
how I felt, why I felt that way but it could be refined to closer suit me and the PB
players.  

Four weeks after the initial email, I was in North Finchley at Pentland Group Head
Office. A quick Google Maps search revealed what I thought was a office park. When
I drove in, it turned out the entire park was just for them: a lake, Astroturf pitch and
all.  Laden with kit for the afternoon taster session, I struggled my way into “main
reception” where I entered a huge open plan space and no reception! Everything
was key carded but luckily I was able to make contact with my main person.  On my
initial tour, I got to see the reality of how huge Pentland Group is. Just look here to
see the brands they own or work with. I saw the swimming pool in the office (they own
Speedo and used it for product and promo photo shoots), the gym and dance space.
The Astro pitch contained two tennis courts, as well as five-a-side football at
one time. Ellesse branding was everywhere on that space: another of their brands,
with a deep history in racket sports.  
 
However, my meeting was with possibly their most marquee brand, Lacoste.
Pentland Chaussures are a joint venture with the French division to design their shoe
range. Going up a number of floors and entering the meeting room was like a shoe
nerd heaven. Everywhere I looked was deconstructed shoes, shoes for upcoming
seasons and then there was the Rene room: the design studio named after the
founder, Rene Lacoste. 
 
After a quick coffee and meeting the whole team, my first order of the day was to
sign an NDA so that I couldn’t share what I saw that day until the project was
completed (hence now). What followed was quite staggering to me.

We discussed my thoughts on the shoe they sent to me. My radical honesty turned
out to be almost exactly where the team themselves were on the shoes. Pricing,
design, construction: I was closely aligned with them but was able to add extra
insight on some key areas.  After the feedback, I then got to see the design brief, the
inspirations, initial designs then the design of the actual prototypes they were going
to make.  The team and main designer were aligned with what I’d suggested on the
first call, had done some research into rival shoes and genuinely listened to my
thoughts already.  They asked for my opinions on mid sole foam density and
shaping, inner sole construction, arch support, design variants and upper design. 
They were shaping a shoe close to my needs and possibly informed on my advice. I
wasn’t designing the shoe but contributing to keeping it on the right track for success
with the target market. Their final comment which floored me was that they were
changing their wear test shoe size specifically to be my size and could I recruit some
additional size ten wear testers. A sample size was being changed for little old me! 
 
After we had finished the meeting and chatting over lunch, the Lacoste team fed
back that they really respected that I was giving advice more from what I know my
players and community need, not just me and my feet. I can talk about strobels,
medial and lateral outriggers, flex points in uppers and vamps so our conversations
were higher level than the rugby player who asked for a “comfy soft” boot! (They also
own Canterbury Rugby).  I was advising on what their target market was and what
they needed: potentially what they may be after as a consumer is not me, but I know
who that player is. I play at a higher level than the mass market pickleballer so I’m
looking for a different type of shoe when I play.  But when I coach for a long day, I’m
closer to their mainstream market. 

After lunch, I busily taped out a court on their Astro tennis court and led a session for
the majority of the afternoon with the shoe team, with many of the other shoe
designers and office staff coming for a go. Like anyone doing pickleball for the first
time, they were hooked. I had a great time and the weather was really kind to us.  As
we were packing away, it just started to spit a bit with rain. 

After a quick browse at their museum and shop, my time with the team was done for
now. The next stages were to recruit wear testers (turned out I knew a fair few size
ten players that weren’t needed ultimately) and to wait for the prototypes to arrive
from Vietnam. 
 
Phase 2: 25th Jan 2024 Weartest One 

After a bit of back and forth via email on logistics, I was able to finally try a prototype
of the shoe on foot. I was able to secure the sports hall at my David Lloyd club for two
hours and blacked out the glass in the door to avoid prying eyes! Team Lacoste
and I had a lot of fun. 
 
I was presented/proposed to with the shoe from the designer, Cinderella glass
slipper style. After a foot measurement (I am one millimeter shorter on my right foot),
it was time to try on as if in a shop. Initial walking around and feeling the shoe on foot
followed by a bried questionnaire. My mixed partner Helen was also recruited to the
test team for ladies feedback so we were able to start the next phase of the in
person test on court. We went through a number of standard athlete movement tests
that they use for their performance range of shoes, followed by some tests I’d
designed that were more pickleball movement specific. I was a little concerned about
the heel shaping on the outsole and whether it was going to be a little tippy again.
 
After that, we were able to play a bit and properly put the shoes to work. Out of the
box, these shoes were really comfy, light and supportive. Even without my usual
orthotics inside them, I didn’t feel any discomfort issues at all. To have zero break in
or adaptation was pretty rare in a shoe. As I progressed through the session, I felt
more and more confident in the shoe. There was one moment when I knew the shoe
was special.  I went for an Erne (a jumping dynamic move that involves diagonal
take off and a one footed landing) and in the words of gymnasts, I “stuck” the
landing. My foot was perfectly flat on the ground, no slip, no wobble and I was ready
to jump back across. The floor in that hall is normally pretty dusty and slidey: I’d
never landed or been able to move like that with a shoe before.  
 
After a bit of a pretend “battle”, I had to release the shoes back to the Lacoste team
and go back to my previous shoes. Testing over, I was so pleased of the work the
team had done. They had made an incredible pickleball shoe. Helen said it was the
comfiest shoe she’d ever worn on court and was desperate for a pair.
 
Phase three: in the wild

Three weeks later, the next test pair arrived with me. Completely debranded but
otherwise identical, I had a plain white pair to use for testing: reporting required after
25 and 50 hours wear to see how they held up to prolonged use.  In the interim, the
wear test team had doubled: Helen’s daughter Evie and her dubs partner Skylor were
the US testers.  
 
Once again, my local crew of players were “another pair of shoes, Rob?” I had to be
a little careful with what I said: I was bursting with pride of being asked to help on the
project but couldn’t say more than I was trying something out.  There was only one
giveaway if you looked hard enough: the outsole had an inlaid crocodile logo but as it
was all white, you would have to look at my outsole, close up and connect the dots to
work out the brand. I used other brand’s bags to carry them in to throw people off the
scent. 
 
After testing, all four of us were of the same opinion: they were the best shoes we
had ever played pickleball in. They were delivering on court for 4.5 and 5.0 level
players yet had the design built in for longer use for more recreational players. After
around six months of constant use, Helen, Evie and Skylor had started to finally wear
out the outsoles on the shoe. I’d been fortunate to get the only updated sample size
10 so my original pair ended up going back to America with Evie for Skylor as still
had good life left in them. For some reason, I don’t tend to kill outsoles bar in a few
specific spots.
 
Phase 4 : they’re out. 
 
In July, the shoes were signed off and sent to production so it was now the long wait
until they released in the Spring Summer 2025 collection. I knew from previous
launches from other brands that it would be early 2025, typically around the time of
the Australian Open tennis. I resigned myself to possibly having to switch to another
shoe if my second pair didn’t see me through. I received the FrankWorks for testing
(such a great shoe), still had my Diadem’s, Skechers and others in the rotation if
required. This let me eake out the life of my prototypes a little longer but they were
my go-to’s for any serious matchplay.
 
Post Christmas, I was checking the Lacoste UK site every day to see when they
came out. 11th January, they appeared on the site in two colours, white and navy.
After 18 months, my dream was complete: I’d had a hand in creating a shoe for the
sport I love that had reached the market. Whilst input into any product would have
been amazing, shoes have been the thing for me for a long time. I’ve had so many
different pairs of running shoes, basketball shoes and especaily tennis shoes. I
would weigh the shoes to see how that affected their performance or my choice of
what situation to use them in. Side note: these are the lightest racket sport shoes I
have at 352g in a UK size 10. I’d think about how they could be improved, how
different outsole patterns altered performance.  
 
Reflecting back on the process from start to finish, it’s a project I’m so proud of being
part of, even in my low profile way.  Being told that the blog I wrote was the most in
depth analysis of buying shoes for pickleball on the Internet was quite something to
hear. The design and test process was validation that being true to your thoughts
and being open as an “expert” voice is the right pathway. Seeing a product shape
and evolve with a bit of your input is pretty special: I can’t imagine how awesome it
would be to do every day. Although in one way, coaching is shaping people’s play
and you are always learning newer and better ways to deliver a message (if you are
doing the coaching role properly!). 
 
Finally, I have to thank Robert, Matt, Aidan, Tom and especially Toby the designer for
having the faith in me to be part of this project. The last thing I need to to is
encourage you to buy the shoe. It truly is the best PB shoe on the market: I’ve spent
way too much money on shoes in the past decade and owned almost every
significant design of every tennis performance shoe from Nike, Adidas, Asics and
more. I’ve owned the absolute worst from those brands (Nike Zoom Ultrafly, I’m
looking at you!). I’ve used Skechers, new entrants like Diadem and FrankWorks that
are great shoes. Maybe there’s some bias because I had input into them and they
are to a degree built to what I like. However, I was always thinking about every
pickleball player. We all want cushion, comfort, support, lightness, breathability and
quickness. These have it ALL. 
 
You can pick up in men’s sizing here with women’s sizing to launch fairly soon