PARIS - Designer Christian Lacroix showed short skirts and skimpy
swimsuits in his spring/summer 2007 ready-to-wear collection on Friday as he
tries to win younger clients to help revive the label's fortunes.
He has also ditched his jeans and cheaper "Bazar" line of clothing for the
first time in 10 years to focus on his ready-to-wear and haute couture
collections with the aim of taking the brand upmarket.
"I think today we're in a process of renewal," Christian Lacroix President
Nicolas Topiol told Reuters after the show.
"It's really this idea of scaling it up and connecting the couture with the
ready-to-wear and having a younger target."
The loss-making label was sold by luxury goods giant LVMH last year to the
Falic Group, a privately held U.S. investment company.
Lacroix will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year and Topiol is hoping to
keep existing clients and attract the next generation at the same time.
"We've got a clientele of a certain age who are still gorgeous and now they
have daughters and we can dress them as well," he said.
Short hemlines have been a feature of the Paris ready-to-wear collections
this week. On Friday morning, Chanel paraded girls in tiny skirts and Lacroix
carried on the theme.
Models with bobbed red hair and wooden platform shoes displayed a range of
mini dresses with small sleeves and revealing backs.
One wore a white lantern dress covered with big yellow disks. Another had a
red taffeta balloon dress with shaded houndstooth print and a jet embroidered
bustier.
Swimsuits sparkled with multicolored embroidery around almost bare stomachs.
Rachel Zoe, a celebrity designer behind the looks of well-known faces
such as Americans Nicole Richie and actress Lindsay Lohan, was there to check
out the skimpy trends.
"You know what, everything this season is very short. It keeps getting
shorter," she said after the Lacroix show.
But Topiol noted that what designers send down the runway is not necessarily
what clients will eventually buy. Hemlines can be lowered and cleavages can be
raised in the showrooms.
Parisienne designer Sonia Rykiel also went for low backs and short lengths.
But her emphasis was on having fun and her models seemed to be enjoying
themselves, comfortable in flat sandals and relaxed styles.
They sported sparkling black and white visors and tiaras adorned with flowers
to accompany a collection in pinks, whites and yellows.
The backstage was decorated with brightly colored instructions to "pleeeeease
smile" and "walk with energy".
The message from the flame-haired Rykiel to women who might buy her clothes:
"Take care of everything -- politics, children, illness, the environment."
