Tears flow at Lacroix’s couture show

PARIS — It’s not every day a fashion show triggers rivers of tears and group hugs. But that was the just what happened Tuesday as Christian Lacroix showed what could possibly be his last haute couture show — at least for as long as it takes the legendary French designer to sort out his finances.

Lacroix, whose name has come over the past two decades to epitomize the rarefied world of haute couture, launched insolvency proceedings in late May and looks likely to close its doors at the end of this month. Money at the Paris-based luxury label was so tight that nearly everyone involved in Tuesday’s show agreed to work for free to make it happen.

In somber shades of black and navy, Lacroix’s winter 2010 collection had a funereal feeling, and the crowd of well-heeled women wiping their eyes after the display only added to the dark mood.

Longtime fashion critic Isabelle Chalencon was among those who broke down during the show.

“I must admit I was really touched because for me, he is simply the greatest,” said Chalencon, a fashion journalist with France-2 television. “It’s simply not possible that a label like this one can disappear.”

Still, it wasn’t all gloom and doom.

Nearly all of the 24 looks garnered a raucous round of applause from the normally fickle fashion crowd. Loyal fans unfurled a banner reading “Christian Lacroix forever” as the genial designer took a final lap around the catwalk.

Lacroix was optimistic that the death of the house — and Tuesday’s symbolic burial — would mark a new beginning and that the label would rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes.

“I can’t think this is the end,” Lacroix told Associated Press Television News in a backstage interview. “It’s the beginning of something, I hope.”

Lacroix blamed his financial problems, which have dogged the house over its 22-year history, on a “lack of chemistry” between the business and creative sides of the company, which was bought from luxury giant LVMH by the Falic Group, a U.S. duty-free retailer, in 2005.

Lacroix said he hopes to relaunch the haute couture line and a “very high-end” ready-to-wear collection, as well as more accessible perfume and sunglasses collections. He estimated it would take about €50 million to properly relaunch the label, and said Tuesday’s show — held at Les Arts Decoratifs museum, would serve as a showcase to seduce possible financiers.

“We had to show what we know, what we can do,” Lacroix said. His friends and supporters pitched in, with a prestigious embroiderer working for free, a high-end shoe brand donating the models’ towering heels and the makeup artists and hairdressers working for free. Only the 12 models were paid, Lacroix said.

And show he did. The collection was a tour de force of superb volumes, with Lacroix’s signature supple draping, black lace, tone-on-tone embroidery and luscious beadwork. The models, in chic black skirt suits and oversized flat-topped felt hats that obscured their faces, looked like trophy wives at a mafia funeral.

The bridal gown — which traditionally closes haute couture displays — was a Catholic icon, with a standup aureole highlighting her ivory satin and lace dress.

The sumptuous dress underscored Lacroix’s rare genius — and, he hoped, his label’s raison d’etre.

“Everything connected with handmade work has a cachet these days,” he said. And “without being cynical, money will be there forever.”

So why shouldn’t Lacroix be there, after the financial crisis, to craft exquisite made-to-measure goods for those who can afford them?