Christian Lacroix's beetle juice
		
		
	
	
PARIS: With embroidery crawling up a stockinged ankle, a carapace of encrusted wool and a chiffon dress in the iridescent blue-green of beetle wings, Christian Lacroix created his fantasy world outside the salon and in a garden of creepy-crawly delights.
The result was a fresh and just slightly eerie take on the Lacroix culture, as the familiar bows, flowers and painterly colors were infiltrated by insect life. Suddenly the lace that coyly covered half the face below wild spikes of hair seemed more like protective mesh. And the colors, when they splattered out after a passage of dark lace, they seemed pretty but also random and nature-gone-wild.
Yet essentially Lacroix's couture is always in the same spirit - an impenetrable mix of color, texture and historical styles, although it was only toward the end of the show, when an Infanta dress came out with a field of flowers on its shelf of a torso, that the designer brought out his theatrical side.
"Insects - and Vélasquez," said Lacroix behind the scarlet curtain of a backdrop. He was referring to a reflection of the Spanish painter in tooled leather, inflated sleeves and lush brocade and fur. Yet that deep richness was set off with simple silhouettes and by narrow dresses where only a trio of bows at the back or flowers at the neck added ornamentation.
Lacroix is prepping a photo exhibition for an art festival in his native Arles, in France, next week. Maybe trips to Provence had brought out the flora and fauna spirit of this winter collection, although the designer did create elegant patterned hosiery and plenty of those roomy coats with ballooning sleeves.
Showing for the second season at the Pompidou Center in Paris, Lacroix allowed the daylight to flood into the large area - symbolic of a couture spirit in which a take on the designer's original pouf dress was presented as salmon pink ruffles and a long gown was painted with poppies, making the collection seem not overwrought, but full of fresh air.
suzy menkes, iht.com