Christian Lacroix Biography

Birth Name : Christian Marie Marc Lacroix

Date of Birth : 16 May 1951, Arles, France

Nationality : French

Occupation : Fashion designer

Christian Lacroix was born on May 16, 1951 in Arles, France, under the highly symbolic sign of Taurus.

He spent his solitary childhood between the Camargue beaches and the Alpilles pine forests, amongst the Gallo-Roman ruins and the remnants of the 1944 WWII bombings, attending bullfighting events and theater or opera festivals, immersed in both Provencal and Gypsy traditions, and enjoying museum paintings and attic books. During his adolescence, he discovered a passion for Oscar Wilde and the Beatles' England as well as Barcelona and Venice. He later studied Art History at the University of Montpellier. In 1973, he continued his studies in Paris at both the Sorbonne and the Ecole du Louvre, with the ambition to become a museum curator.

Though Lacroix was happy to create haute couture for the house of Patou, he also wanted to create ready-to-wear lines. However, de Mouy would not let Lacroix do this. By the end of 1986, Lacroix was open to offers from other companies. After showing his spring/summer collection for 1987, Lacroix signed a contract to open his own couture company and quit Patou. He was able to just walk because he was only an employee of the company. De Mouy was not happy about the abrupt departure and sued him. De Mouy accused Lacroix, as well as Picart, of planning to leave for months before the designer left his employ. Upon his departure, de Mouy closed down the couture arm of Patou.

Side projects aside, Lacroix remained a fashion force. In 2002, he added an additional designing job to his plate. He agreed to become the head designer for the house of Pucci. Lacroix had been influenced by the label in his career, and wanted to help further develop Pucci. Pucci had its heyday a few decades earlier, and was stumbling as a company, but its new owner wanted to keep the name alive. Lacroix had to work within the Pucci aesthetic which worked well with his own approach to fashion. Pucci was big and bold, but with a slightly more stylized look. For his own label and other work, Lacroix looked to a new source of inspiration. He told Jess Cartner-Morley of the Guardian, "Today, I feel more than ever connected to the future. Ten years ago, my work was connected with the past, with nostalgia, but now the engine driving me is my life here now and the future."