It’s six years to the day since Christian Lacroix hosted his last haute couture extravaganza (save a 2013 capsule for Schiaparelli at the invitation of owner Diego Della Valle). The dire financial straits the couturier was facing made for a more somber affair than the kind of fantasia that’s synonymous with his legacy—models were paid just €50 apiece—but it closed out in classic Lacroix fashion: with la mariée, in this case Vlada Roslyakova, floating out on a cloud of froth and flou. To be one of the brides who famously ended his shows was an honor for many a Lacroix favorite over the years, from his earliest collections, the silver-maned beauty Marie Seznec Martinez, to muses of the aughts like neo-Raphaelite Lily Cole and the singular Alek Wek. But beyond that, the finale of a Lacroix show symbolized fashion at its most confectionary, dreamy heights. Since the designer’s exit, that’s been a hole in the couture calendar that’s gone unoccupied. In an era when the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier and Viktor & Rolf have ceased ready-to-wear operations to focus on their couture businesses (a market long held to be unsustainable in the 21st century), even the world of the alta moda has swayed a bit more to the grounded and the streamlined; Lacroix’s theatrical vision has no contemporary counterpart. In honor of the couturier’s legacy, we’re revisiting 10 of his most beautiful haute couture brides. Click through the slideshow above to see them all.
—Kristin Anderson
