Christian Lacroix Couture Show

Little drummer boys, chichi soubrettes, Belle Époque madames, southern Mediterranean exotics: All these stock Christian Lacroix characters lined up and wound their way around his carpeted runway for Spring. In that sense, the collection was much as it always is, though that's also to say just as laden with layered delights and surprises. Lacroix has relaxed into a groove in which all the imagination he's developed and knowledge he's accrued over 22 years seem to flow out of his fingertips and into effortless collages of pattern, color, and personal references.