Christian Lacroix
Christian Lacroix ( born May 16, 1951 in Arles, France ) is a French fashion designer, entrepreneur and art historian and founder of the eponymous fashion company, which has been operational since the end of 2009 without him.
Biography
Born in Trinquetaille, a district of Arles in France, Lacroix spent his childhood mostly with his grandparents in Arles. This lasting influence on him on style and elegance. After he had passed his A-levels, he moved in the late 1960s to Montpellier, and studied French literature there. In 1971 he moved to Paris and studied at the Sorbonne art history. He began in the late 1970s to become museum curator with the actual target with a dissertation on dress in 17th-century paintings.
In Paris Lacroix learned early 1970s his future wife, Françoise Rose Thiel, a Hermès consultant, know who opened the way into the fashion industry to him. With it, he has been married since 1974. At Rose Thiel's friends belonged to the PR manager Jean -Jacques Picart, who worked for a number of French haute couture fashion company. By Rose Thiel and Picart's mediation Lacroix worked from 1978 as a sign assistant in the fashion department of Hermès, 1980 took a job with the French designer Guy Paulin and recorded from 1981 to 1987 haute couture collection of the house of Jean Patou. For the Japanese designer Jun Ashida, who also endowed members of the imperial family, Lacroix was incidentally worked from 1980. In 1986 Lacroix for his work in Patou by the Council of Fashion Designers of America a special award as the most influential foreign designers.
Between 1987 and 2009, Lacroix was chief designer of his own fashion label, see below. During this time he was by the way also repeatedly engaged as a costume designer for theater, opera or ballet, for example, of the Paris Opera (2001), Opéra Garnier (2000), Opéra- Comique (1992 ), Comédie- Française (1995), Brussels Opera La Monnaie / De Munt (2003), Vienna State Opera (1999), American Ballet Theatre (1987 ) and many more. For Madonna and Mireille Mathieu, he created tour outfits.
2002 Lacroix was appointed Knight of the French Legion of Honour. In 2005 he founded the company XCLX dedicated to the design of theater costumes, hotels and interiors or perfumes for cosmetic company Avon is dedicated and belongs to him alone. Besides his numerous collections Lacroix had always tailored dresses and gowns for plays, operas and ballets. In 2004 he designed the uniforms for the entire customer contact in standing Air France staff. In addition, the design of the interior of the latest TGVs that travel the routes Frankfurt -Saarbrücken and Stuttgart - Paris -Strasbourg- Paris since 2007 comes from Lacroix ' spring. In Montpellier, he has also designed a tram line in marine style. Mid-2010, Lacroix was appointed artistic adviser to the French Mint Monnaie de Paris. For Alexandre Cabanel - show shown from February 4 to May 15, 2011 in Cologne, Wallraf -Richartz Museum, Christian Lacroix has designed the exhibition architecture.
The Christian Lacroix brand
Heyday with LVMH
With the support of his wife, his business partner Jean -Jacques Picart and the Dior chief and later LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault, who had become aware of Lacroix on his activities at Jean Patou, Lacroix founded in 1987 his own company and presented his first own haute couture collection under the name Christian Lacroix. In the elegant Parisian Rue du Faubourg Saint- Honoré, a 73 Lacroix salon was opened. He has since settled until 2009 Couturier. Lacroix was for his opulent and elegant ladies gowns in light, colorful - known substances - like red. One of his trademarks was created by him Ballonrock Le pouf. Lacroix himself, who had landed as an art historian almost by chance in the world of fashion, was more and more artists and less businessman. The transferability of the models was breathtaking and not necessarily in the foreground. In 1988 Lacroix on the cover of the American Time magazine. In the following years he also brought ready- to-wear collections for women (from 1988 ), a line of accessories, sportswear, a Wohnbedarf collection (from 1995) and Jeans ( from 1996) and perfumes (from 1999 ) on the market. Its heyday was the house of Christian Lacroix in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Lacroix was - with a few other designers - the epitome of priceless expensive Parisian haute couture. In this time there including in the UK, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Argentina, Japan or the U.S., the world Lacroix boutiques.
In 1993, the LVMH Group acquired the Christian Lacroix brand completely. 1994 was added in the second-line bazaar for Lacroix portfolio. In 1999, the first perfume of the house was presented, followed by others. 2001 a children's collection was launched. In 2002, Lacroix also the post of chief designer at Pucci, another LVMH brand, which he, however, admitted the end of 2005. 2004 Christian Lacroix men's collection was launched.
Sales and insolvency
Beginning of 2005, LVMH sold the company to the American Christian Lacroix Falic Group, an operator of American duty- free shops. Lacroix himself stated that they were not informed about the sale by Arnault. The sale was justified by the fact that the brand since its foundation in 1987, "could not be performed in the black ," but only ever recorded losses. Lacroix himself remained chief designer and minority shareholder. The collections Bazar and Jeans have been set. 2007/ 08 could be bought in collaboration with the mail-order company La Redoute, a low -priced co- collection of Lacroix with women's fashion, accessories and home needs.
End of May 2009, the company reported Lacroix insolvency; the search for a new financial partner had failed. As reasons for the insolvency were massive slump in sales, especially in the U.S., called due to the economic crisis. In July 2009, Lacroix presented his time being last haute couture collection in Paris, for which he spent his own funds and was involved companies that gave up a payment dependent. The already presented Autumn / Winter 2009-2010 ready-to- wear collection was no longer present in production. Lacroix left the fashion company he founded in late 2009 and has since focused on its own, founded in 2005, design firm XCLX. The rights to his name include the Falic Group.
Lacroix Lacroix without
In December 2009, a Paris commercial court decided after potential buyers were unable to provide financial guarantees that the Falic Group should begin a restructuring plan that the dismissal of all but twelve employees and the temporary suspension of the clothing division for women fashion ( haute couture and prêt -à- porter ) foresaw. The house Lacroix consists only of the licensing business with menswear, ties, bride dresses, perfume, eyewear, home furnishings and stationery since 2010. In March 2010, Sacha Walckhoff, a French-Swiss Lacroix staff since 1992, was appointed chief designer. A designed by Walckhoff and produced under license menswear collection for spring / summer 2011 was introduced in mid-2010. Since then, Lacroix Men's Fashion was presented at the Paris Fashion Week regularly. The company was simultaneously announced that before the end of 2014 no relaunch of women's fashion was planned.
Others
Christian Lacroix was the favorite brand of games played by Jennifer Saunders main character in the popular from the 1990s, British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
On September 28, 2013 had at the Graz Opera, directed by Johannes Erath Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin in the costume outfit by Christian Lacroix premiere.