BEAMS marks 50 years with minimalist Lacoste badge tee

BEAMS chose restraint over noise for its 50th anniversary, and that is exactly why the Lacoste badge tee works. Instead of a loud commemorative graphic, the label took one of fashion’s most recognizable symbols, Lacoste’s crocodile, and rewired it into a clean BEAMS-branded emblem on the chest and back of the neck. At ¥12,100, it lands less like souvenir merch and more like the kind of collector piece longtime shoppers actually keep in rotation.

The shirt sits comfortably inside BEAMS’ heritage playbook. Founded in 1976 in Harajuku, Tokyo, as “American Life Shop BEAMS,” the company set March 3, 2026 as the start of its anniversary year and anchored the celebration with the slogan “Ready, Happy, Go! ” BEAMS has said it will roll out more than 250 special-order and limited items over the year, a scale that makes this tee feel like one carefully judged entry in a much larger archive of anniversary releases.

That wider program is not just about product. BEAMS has also mapped out a BEAMS HEART relaunch, a renewal of its Harajuku flagship, the launch of its BEAMS digroo resale service, and an eventual store opening in Los Angeles. In that context, the Lacoste collaboration reads as a sharp logo exercise rather than a one-off stunt. It matches the anniversary mood: polished, wearable, and just obscure enough to reward people who know the brand’s code.

Lacoste brings its own history to the table. The brand says the crocodile emblem was created in 1927 by designer Robert George, then became the first visible logo on a garment when René Lacoste had it embroidered on blazers and later polos. That lineage gives the BEAMS shirt real shorthand value. It is a badge tee with pedigree, not decoration for decoration’s sake.

The collaboration also builds on an existing relationship between the two labels. BEAMS previously ran a custom-order event for Lacoste L.12.12 polo shirts and has sold BEAMS-limited crocodile emblem items before, so this anniversary release feels like an evolution of a familiar partnership. BEAMS lists the shirt as a special-order 50th-anniversary item, and the embedded BEAMS logo inside the crocodile is the subtle move that gives it staying power. Loud anniversary merch fades fast; this one looks built to outlast the celebration.