Hail, Caesars

The first Christian Lacroix store in the United States has opened at the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

The store – a collaboration of The Pavlik Design Team (Ft. Lauderdale), The Kreo Gallery (Paris) and the designer himself – will extend to all of the label's points of sale. It combines contemporary design with Baroque style, and juxtaposes the luxury of Lacroix’s salon at the Faubourg Saint Honore in Paris with the wild nature of the designer’s native province, Camargue.

From behind a great window is a totem of terracotta, blown Murano glass and Swarovski crystal. The putty-colored cement walls are veined in gold and mercury run-outs, while the composite floors are a mix of Provencal tomette floor tiling, wood, slate and thick wool carpets. Contrasting with minimalist metallic furniture are hand-carved vitrines and baroque consoles created from an original 18th-Century piece that Christian Lacroix himself found in Arles.

In lieu of traditional accessories display cases, a personal touch is added through women's jewelry boxes and men's curio boxes in quarter cut lolo, wenge, ebony and elm. The fitting rooms are designed in an artful composition of hand-made decorative lighting and furniture, antiqued interior trim and hardware, and doors in 19th-Century French urban design.

The store will carry the full line of ready-to-wear and accessories beginning with the pre-fall collection. It will also carry the swimwear, lingerie and jewelry collections (both costume and semi-precious) exclusively in the U.S.

Lacroix founded his couture house in Paris in 1987 after time at Jean Patou and Hermes. The house is now one of 12 officially accredited haute couture houses.