Lacroix (Christian)

French fashion designer / The Women’s Orient Exhibition seen by Christian Lacroix at the Quai Branly Museum under the patronage of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy (February-May 2011).

World-renowned French fashion designer Christian Lacroix was born in Arles and brought up amidst the colours of Provence. He combines this vivid palette and a style-conscious family background with trademark flamboyance to create his signature style. Like Jean Paul Gaultier, the designer honed his craft at the Jean Patou label, before establishing his own couture house in 1987 and launching a ready-to-wear label the following year. This new world of Lacroix was inspired by tales and traditions infusing the French imagination from as far back as the 18^th century. The designer threw himself into a flurry of sideline projects, creating costumes for theatre, lingerie and porcelain collections, and uniforms for Air France, interior design for the TGV Méditerranée high speed train, revamping architectural spaces, and acting as artistic editor for Libération newspaper’s cultural almanac, released in 2004. These freelance projects helped maintain financial stability in an uncertain sector. The Lacroix label, operating under the wing of the Bernard Arnault group, was acquired by Falic Fashion Group in 2005, shortly after Lacroix launched his menswear line. His more accessible lines, Lacroix Jeans and Lacroix Bazar, were not developed to their full potential, and the first Lacroix fragrance failed to generate enough profit to finance the costs of haute couture. Even as Lacroix designs were celebrated from Paris to Singapore, the label experienced serious financial difficulties, defaulting in May 2009, and is now in receivership. As Jean-Jacques Picart, co-founder of the Lacroix label, told Libération on December 1, 2009, ‘It’s not a question of talent. It’s business.’