Elegant Lacroix

Christian Marie Marc Lacroix was born in 1951 in Arles, France.  He left his native Arles to study the history of art in Montpellier, and then enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1973. He wrote a master's thesis on French costume of the seventeenth century paintings, while at the same time taking courses at the École du Louvre to become a museum curator. With the encouragement of his wife, he soon turned to fashion design. In 1978 he joined Hermès, where he learned the technical aspects of the profession. In 1986 he received the Golden Thimble award for dresses designed in honor of his native region of Camargue. In December 1986 Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) offered him the financial support needed to open his own couture house.

The Christian Lacroix house was inaugurated in 1987 in Paris.   On July 26, 1987 Lacroix presented his first collection under his own name, and that year the Council of Fashion Designers of America awarded him the prize for Most Influential Foreign Designer. Inspired by dresses in the style of the 1880s, he designed an off-the-shoulder dress with a high waist, the miniskirt of which became the emblematic "pouf." Completed by a short bolero jacket, the ensemble was cut in highly colored and decorative fabrics inspired by Provence.   Folk and traditional elements were set off by a certain French grandeur, coquettishness, and whimsy that reflected the desires of a new generation hungry for luxury.  In 1988 the profession awarded him a second Golden Thimble. The dream collapsed with the stock market crash. The pouf soon became a metaphor for the excesses of the 1980s, which gave way to the minimalism of the 1990s.

In his designs, Lacroix nevertheless remained faithful to his roots and his history in a clothing collection where east meets west, the north basks in the southern sun, and the past blends with the future.  The 1980’s had allowed him to define and focus these influences, and over the years he continued to quote from and vary his sources of inspiration, as he developed and refined them.

Source
Golbin, Pamela. "Lacroix, Christian." The Berg Fashion Library. The Berg Fashion Library, 2005. Web. 4 Feb. 2013. <http://www.bergfashionlibrary.com/view/bazf/bazf00352.xml>

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