Raised in a bourgeois household in Arles, a community located in the south of France region of Camargue, Lacroix liked to draw as a child. Many of his sketches were of clothing. When asked at one point about his future career, the young Lacroix said he wanted to be Christian Dior, the famous French designer.
Lacroix graduated from high school in and moved to Montpellier, to study Art History at the University of Montpellier. In , he enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris. While working on a dissertation on dress in French 18th-century painting, Lacroix also pursued a program in museum studies at the Ecole du Louvre.
His aspiration during this time was to become a museum curator. However, despite this training, he could not find a job in the field. It was during this time he met his future wife Francoise Rosenthiel , whom he married in At the time, she worked in the office of Jean-Jacques Picart, a freelance image consultant and powerful public relations consultant.
Lacroix soon began working in the fashion industry himself. Lacroix began by working as an assistant for several fashion firms. He started out at Hermes as a fashion assistant. Lacroix then worked at Guy Paulin as his assistant working on accessories. Lacroix moved to Tokyo after a time to work for a haute couture firm for a year. Soon after his return, Lacroix was given a job as a head designer at a leading French fashion house.
At the time Lacroix came aboard, the firm sold more of its popular perfumes, such as Joy, than its clothing. De Mouy gave Lacroix the freedom to create two collections per year of couture for women in any way he wanted to do them. One reason Lacroix was given the chance to design for Patou was his connection to Picart. Picart helped him get the job, and he was involved with the revitalization of Patou. During his early tenure there, Lacroix initially produced designs inspired by what Patou had done in the past.
Over time, he slowly developed what would become his signature style. By , his out-there designs attracted a following among fashionable women. He finally broke out with a collection influenced by his childhood in the south of France. Lacroix became a star with his collections for Patou. The collections included a short bubble dress and a pouf dress, both of which were very influential on other designers and changed the face of fashion for a time.
Lacroix took many chances with his haute couture looks, including placing bustles on strapless evening dresses. Many observers believed he made modern couture , an industry some considered a dying art, fun again.
Though Lacroix was happy to create haute couture for the house of Patou, he also wanted to create ready-to-wear lines. When the outlook is grey, the impulse is to grasp at colour, frivolity, exuberance and eccentricity. Are we on the brink of a collapse today? In fashion, there are two reactions to those kind of socioeconomic extremities: to tough it out and reflect the harsh, even brutal reality; or to retreat into fantasy. It was an exercise in extreme fantasy and make-believe, in the seductive power of fashion as a dream.
She had to be helped out over the heads of the press. Attention is an interesting concept: these are clothes that demand it, grabbing at the eye. In a digital landscape saturated with media, perhaps that is why designers are drawn to these Lacroix-isms — to help make their own sartorial statements resonate.
The simple joy of creativity, the joy of craftsmanship, a joy in wearing these extreme, amusing clothes. And the joy, also, of fashion, pure and simple. These are clothes that take neither themselves — nor the industry bubbling with turmoil and uncertainty, like the wider world around them — too seriously. They make you want to get dressed in the morning. Who could ask for anything more? Dazed media sites. Subscribe to the weekly AnOther newsletter. I would like to receive the AnOther newsletter.
With his background in historical costume, he made the headlines with his fantasy, opulence and introduction of the puffball skirt, flower rose prints and low necklines. The nineties saw Lacroix start up a number of diffusion lines as well as a perfume.
Unfortunately in the house; Christian Lacroix went in administration. Saxony Dudbridge was one of the first contributors to the Catwalk Yourself project, Saxony studies International Fashion Marketing and she is responsible for our great History and Designers Biographies sections.
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