Editor’s indicate: Vogue Runway is celebrating doubtlessly the most keen time of the year by alongside side six magical—and newly digitized—1990s high fashion reveals to our archive. Christian Lacroix’s spring 1999 sequence used to be first and major presented in Paris on January 19, 1999, within the ballroom of the Ample Resort.
“Spring ’99 used to be each and every abstract and romantic, graphic and naive. A little bit love 19th-century dolls, with destructured/restructured shapes, exaggerated groundless proportions, a form of tulle, and ribbons, with a form of particular textiles and craftsmanship tiny print.”
—Christian Lacroix
As Y2K approached, time perceived to compress as designers revisited the history of style; this used to be namely the case at the couture, the domain of fantasy. Christian Lacroix, an art historian who came to Paris from his native Arles with the blueprint of fixing into a curator, perceived to devour been taking a look for closely at art work by artists obsessive about costume when designing his spring 1999 sequence. Beribboned bodices recalled those ancient by the rosy-cheeked beauties depicted by François Boucher or Nicolas Lancret, and a citrus yellow and unlit ensemble would possibly presumably per chance devour walked out of a image by James Tissot.
“The bride used to be impressed by Neapolitan santons in wired drépés of satin taffetas and chiffon.” —Christian Lacroix
In 1990 Vogue had declared Lacroix the “king of color,” and he proved he quiet merited the title here with robes in hues so saturated you would nearly style them. A majority of those electrifying color combos devour been supreme revealed when a mannequin turned and confirmed the serve of her costume. This used to be 360-level romance, and it carried on to the final look, a draped costume that would possibly presumably per chance devour been copied from a Zurbarán painting—or one of the angels guarding the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Neapolitan Baroque crèche.
Audrey Marnay in Christian Lacroix couture.
Photographed by Arthur Elgort, Vogue, March 1999