Cintra Wilson Goes Shopping:

Just what is it that Cintra Wilson wants from Christian Lacroix?
Today's Thursday Styles features that most critical of Critical Shoppers in a particularly prickly mood as she surveys the recently opened Christian Lacroix boutique on East 57th Street.
The general view of Lacroix these days is that he is finally flourishing now that his company is no longer part of the luxury behemoth that is LVMH, and the new owners have fostered something of a renaissance for the Parisian couturier. Now that his business ducks are all in a row, the designer seems to be firing on all cylinders, but not to La Cintra, who can only associate him with his initial late 1980s emergence and the extravagant pouf dresses that caused a fashion rage at the time.
It's still easy to make fun of 80s fashion even as the styles continue to be systematically revived season after season (neon brights? skinny jeans? asymmetrical haircuts?) When the Lacroix, there's a pretty good expectation of what to expect. Ultra-luxe, inventive extravagance has always been his stock in trade, and the designer would probably be the first to admit that what he makes is not for everyone. What La Cintra sees as recycling the past, most everyone else recognizes as Lacroix being true to signature style. It's not as if he is coming out of a minimalist period or anything.

It’s a fantasy ’80s-ex-’80s, a heyday where drugs never killed the party and AIDS never ravaged the earth. A flush new look for a life of freewheeling decadence, for stepping out of red sports cars with teased hair and a rolled-up hundred in your lipstick case.

So he shouldn't make a new pouf dress without making reference to drug addiction and AIDS? Projecting much? That's a lot of baggage for a ballgown to have to drag around.
Critical Shopper: Christian Lacroix - Advanced Stages of Regression By Cintra Wilson (NYTimes)
Christian Lacroix 36 East 57th Street between Madison and Park Avenues, Midtown