Christian Lacroix
Christian Lacroix’s creations combine his Provençal roots, passion for folklore, and fascination with clothing history in spectacular ways. His artfully unexpected combinations express a new kind of luxury that is both youthful, baroque, and sophisticated. Lacroix combines bright colors and lavish materials in creations that express a refined blending of different cultures; distant and forgotten costumes form the foundation, if not the raison d’être, of his work.
Early Life of Christian Lacroix
Christian Marie Marc Lacroix was born in Arles, France in 1951. Lacroix demonstrated an early interest in design by assembling small albums on theater and opera, collages of family portraits, and reproductions of Christian Bérard. He left his hometown of Arles to study art history in Montpellier before enrolling at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1973. He wrote a master’s thesis on French costume in seventeenth-century paintings while also studying at the École du Louvre to become a museum curator. He met his future wife, Françoise Rosensthiel, at this time, and they married in 1974.
Entering Fashion
With his wife’s encouragement, he soon turned to fashion design. He began working for Hermès in 1978, where he learned the technical aspects of the business. Two years later, he worked as an assistant to Guy Paulin before taking over as a designer for Jean Patou in 1981, succeeding Roy Gonzales. He received the Golden Thimble award in 1986 for dresses designed in honor of his native Camargue region. In December 1986, Lacroix met Bernard Arnault, CEO of the multinational luxury conglomerate Louis Vuitton Mot Hennessy (LVMH), who offered him the financial backing he needed to open his own couture house.
The Christian Lacroix house in Paris opened in 1987 at 73, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. On July 26, 1987, Lacroix debuted his first collection under his own name, and the Council of Fashion Designers of America named him Most Influential Foreign Designer that year. Inspired by 1880s dresses, he created an off-the-shoulder dress with a high waist, the miniskirt of which became the iconic “pouf.” The ensemble, which was completed by a short bolero jacket, was cut in highly colored and decorative fabrics inspired by Provence. Folk and traditional elements were offset by a touch of French grandeur, coquettishness, and whimsy, reflecting the desires of a new generation hungry for luxury. Thus, Lacroix’s style confirmed the taste for typically southern opulence, reviving French haute couture, which had been labeled as a dying art. Christian Lacroix was dubbed the “Messiah” by France Soir, and he was featured on the cover of Time. The profession bestowed upon him a second Golden Thimble in 1988. The stock market crash brought the dream to an end. The pouf quickly became a symbol for the 1980s excesses, which gave way to the 1990s minimalism.
Lacroix remained true to his roots and history in his designs, creating a clothing collection where east meets west, north meets south, and the past meets the future. The 1980s enabled him to define and focus these influences, and he continued to quote from and vary his sources of inspiration as he developed and refined them over the years.
Color Palettes
Lacroix also continued to use a glittering color palette. “Colors have always appealed to me, so much so that as a child I fantasized about swallowing tubes of yellow and vermilion paint,” he explained (de Bure, p. 129). His designs became more abstract, and the dresses became simpler, with more visible architecture. Previously, the decoration was created before the dress; now, it appears only after the dress has been constructed. “In reality, I love only what deviates from the path, has a flaw, is heterogeneous, and transitory,” he explained. “I believe I like everything and its polar opposite. That is most likely the key “ (du Bure, p. 130).
Stage Design
Lacroix has made his fashion world a stage, designing for over twenty ballets, operas, and plays. In 1996, he received the Molière Award for best costume design for his work on the Comédie Française’s production of Phèdre. In the year 2000, he renewed his contract with LVMH, the owner of his couture house. He splits his time between his duties as artistic director of this couture house and his own business, XCLX. His projects are numerous and varied, and his commissions are increasingly spectacular. Eight carriages of the TGV Méditerranée (a high-speed French train) that he “dressed” and presented as haute couture creations are among his extravagant designs. “What now interests me is going beyond fashion to participate in ways of living, in our global environment, with uniforms [for Air France], TGV seats, and stage costumes.” Clothing, theater, design… all help me express a different aspect of my personality” (Brébant, p. 61). “The Lacroix woman is staged in a theatrical fashion,” he says of his vision. She is not afraid of being noticed; nothing bland can be imagined for her.
Lacroix and Pucci
Lacroix was appointed artistic director of the Florence ready-to-wear house Emilio Pucci in 2002. That same year, he was named a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. French haute couture, according to Lacroix, is “eternally dying and paradoxically constantly being reborn from its ashes.” Lacroix, a staunch supporter of couture, sees it as a service to his clients rather than an art form: “Art is something made for love.” Art is what enhances the beauty of life. Something that inspires and motivates. “My work serves a purpose; it is not created for the sake of making it.” His creations, created by a diverse group of craftspeople, knitters, corsetieres, painters, and embroiderers, overwhelm and immerse the viewer in a world between dream and reality, where fantastic textures rival embroidered materials in elegance, and where fluid fabrics wedded to richly colored costumes speak in a flamboyant vocabulary signed Christian Lacroix.
Originally published at https://the-luxury-store.blogspot.com on November 19, 2022.
