Christian Lacroix Opens Up At Last

Is the veil of secrecy finally being lifted on the fallen giant that is Christian Lacroix? After handing his company over to luxury-brand owners, taking his larger-than-life couture down several notches, and being declared virtually bankrupt, Lacroix opened up about his iconic brand's impending doom. "War has given me some new energy!" Lacroix told Vogue's Hamish Bowles of his embittered battle with the Falic Group, who has owned his label since 2005. Unfamiliar with the cost-benefit equation of haute couture, the Falic Group quickly ran out of money and eventually filed for the French equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. So what's left of the brand, whose latest 24-piece collection could be its last? It's a pared down, bare-bones version of the monolith that once was-the Falics may have to cut the Christian Lacroix staff by 90 percent-but the no-frills (well, fewer frills) "couture light" collection appears to be making Lacroix stronger. "It's been like a diet!" he said of the restrictions on cultivating the latest line. "Not how it was in our golden era of the eighties. But now we have finished everything; we are more ahead than ever before!"