I have been an admirer of Christian Lacroix and his clothes for many years, so, the chance of going to see an exhibition in Paris curated by him at Les Arts Decoratifs by Eurostar in a grey, rainy week wasn’t a difficult decision.
Lacroix left the south of France where he was born in 1951 and went to Paris at twenty two years of age to study Art History at the Sorbonne and at the Ecole du Louvre, thinking he would become a curator of textiles. Something happened, perhaps meeting his future wife, for he then turned to designing.
Lacroix was still studying when he worked for Hermes (designing shoes), and Guy Paulin. When he graduated he worked for Jean Patou, who had a dated look in the late seventies, but, after giving them a total re-vamp he tripled their sales and went on to open his own couture house in 1987 to great acclaim.
The exuberant combination of patterns, texture and tailoring are the hallmark features, which are now immediately recognised as the house of Lacroix. In all his work you can see the influence of the traditional, Provencal textile patterns, the Gypsy people of the area where he was born and the colourful festivals. The clever way he has of putting patterns and textures together and on top of each other is very exciting. I know he and his wife used to go to the Paris flea markets looking for odd things to add to his collections; I have an Icelandic friend who is his makeup artist, she said he was like a magpie, pouncing on things no-one saw and making them a part of his creation.
Lacroix has built up an empire with Ready-to-wear clothing for men and women, childrenswear, underwear, bridal and his perfume ‘Bazar’ as well as designing for his couture shows.
The costumes he has designed for many major productions for the Theatre, Ballet, Opera and more recently, Film, have made him a towering figure in the creative world, it is no surprise that he was asked to commemorate his work with something special.
The Museum of Decorative Arts asked Christian Lacroix to present his first retrospective exhibition using some of the 81,000 items at the Musee de la Modes et du Textile and selected clothes from his own collection, to create a unique adventure of the story of fashion from the 18th century to the present day. Although Lacroix himself has a different take on it-
“This isn’t a retrospective but rather my own look at the Arts Decoratifs costume and fashion collection. I selected the most inspiring pieces, some of which have never been shown before, which best told the story of fashion as if I were the museum curator I once wanted to be.”
More than 400 garments, from the seventeenth century to the present day were selected, and put together with his haute couture designs into themes- black & white, colour, flowers, ethnic styles etc.
Arranged on two floors, clothes from different periods from the museum and Lacroix’s own couture pieces were placed together to show the connection between them, perhaps it was the military shape or the colour, each area was different, eg, simple embroidered dresses from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were put onto old tailors dummies with a Lacroix dress which had a heavily embroidered floral bodice in the front.
Dark black dresses and suits from the archives were combined with Lacroix pieces and placed at different heights with billowing white net around them, it was lit dramatically from behind,
Some garments were on simple minimal mannequins standing in front of a garment rail with a few dresses or suits behind, linked by colour or pattern. A great many garments from both Lacroix and the Museum had stunning embroidery on them; heavily encrusted raised work, or naïve embroidery, such as the darning stitches on the skirt below the shaggy jacket I hurriedly sketched. (Fig 2) Luscious!
The dress with the long patchwork skirt below the plain grey satin top,(Fig 5) is a pot-pourri of patterns and bright colours, joined together in unequal pieces with bold darning and running stitches, it was topped with a black theatrical headpiece falling down at the back! This was in front of military and suffragette type clothing with similar shapes.
Another strong arrangement was a striped black and white satin skirt, with a ruffled lace blouse ,topped by a bright cerise grosgrain wrap, worn with an ingenious hat of black satin, (the influence of a toreadors hat came to mind!) this was positioned in front of several dark uniforms.
The lighting helped throughout, it was soft flooding or directional, coloured or very white, but it delineated each area separately.
You can see that Lacroix has taken costume influences from all over the world for his design narratives, these tie in with fashion trends of the past already in the Museums collection. Gipsy culture, bullfighting, military uniforms, ballet, and the street fashions of London and New York. Costumes worn by women in the Far East, China and Tibet are all embraced and re-worked and mixed for his Opera, ballet and Theatre projects and spill over into his couture clothes. This was a ‘tour de force’ from a most remarkable designer, I would not have missed it for the world!
NB The Musee de la Mode et du Textile is entered from the Rue de Tivoli, it has a vast, mostly fragile, collection so themed exhibitions are periodically organised.
The Musee des Arts Decoratifs is in the same place and has a very good bookshop, and a great permanent collection.