Lacroix is walking a tightrope

1 Jun 2009

Lacroix is walking a tightropeThe crisis continues to wreak havoc on the fashion world. Last season, Roberto Cavalli abandoned the idea of showing the collection of his youth aimed line Just Cavalli due to “lack of liquidity”. It is now the turn for one of the most important couturiers in the world: Christian Lacroix.

The legendary French couture house has filed for voluntary bankruptcy to seek court protection from their creditors.

After a 22-year career, the French designer has just announced that his fashion house, with which he has a contract until 2010, doesn’t have money to design next collections. The situation is so critical that the American fashion group Falic, which is the current owner of the company, is now negotiating the sale of the couture house but, so far, those negotiations have not moved as rapidly as had been expected. Falic is a company that operates duty-free business.

In 2008, the business volume for Christian Lacroix stood at about 43 million US dollars: USD 14 million less than in  the previous year. And, so far in 2009, the figures are not much better: the sales of the Spring Summer 2009 Prêt-à-Porter Collection, which is the collection where the company has focused most of its efforts, have fallen 30%. Even the haute couture collections, that are always in deficit  (although they are very powerful for branding and promotional purposes), are feeling the effect of the crisis strongly.



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