As the Wall Street Journal notes today, couture shows are not staged for the purpose of making money off those clothes. The benefit of a couture show is its worldwide marketing power, which helps sell things like sunglasses and handbags to aspirational and wealthy consumers. Those sales are the meat and potatoes of a fashion house. The money brought in from the actual couture collection is just the gravy — and maybe not even the gravy, but the truffle oil in the gravy — on top. 

Sadly, it looks like Christian Lacroix just had their last runway show. The label filed for bankruptcy in France in May, but it looks like their foundation was shaky from the beginning. The designer told Hamish Bowles that the Falics, who owned the line, “not being from the couture-and-luxury field ... were not prepared for the long-term investment” in his label. “They thought that in two seasons they would get their money back. The Falics tried to operate a high-end label on a budget, but they began to fall behind and Lacroix was supposed to produce “the ‘It’ bag in cheap leather.”

Lacroix has until the end of the month to find a buyer, but whoever wants to invest will have to cough up about 40 to 60 million euros over the next few years. Ouch!

I'm rooting for you Christian!

Source and images from the show: The Cut