PARIS, Jan 31, 2002/ FWD/ --- The latest respected French label attempting an image overhaul is Lacoste, but judging from the fashion show it presented Sunday in Paris, it’s back to the drawing board for the brand.

Lacoste is a great name with a wonderful heritage, but it felt clearly on the wrong track with this joint showing of the men’s and women’s fall-winter 2002 collections in an indoor tennis court on the western extremes of Paris.

One would have thought that a brand attempting to expand its selection beyond its famed crocodile logo shirts and sneakers might have attempted to capture the inherent sex appeal and body-consciousness of tennis and related sports.

Not Lacoste, which sent out an overly proper collection of clothes which even a conservative would find tame.

That’s not to say that there were not a few interesting items, like elongated tennis shirts, pleated minis, trim sweatpants with boot straps and windbreakers in Irish rugby green.

But the whole collection and mood played way to safe. One had to wonder, has anyone ever heard, or seen, Anna Kournikova in the Lacoste design studio?

Perhaps designer Christophe Lemaire was given a far too restricted brief by the powers within Lacoste.

In the present Darwinian struggle for ad pages, a hoard of fashion editors made it to this show, and they will find something from Lacoste to put in their fashion pages.

But this collection will not achieve its most important goal -- making Lacoste hot.