Christian Lacroix’s rise to fashion-world stardom happened during the boom economy of the 1980s. Everything was inflated and so were his creations—poofed and panniered dresses inspired by art and the Ancien Régime. Lacroix, a scholar of 18th-century French history, actually wanted to be a museum curator. But in 1981 he began designing for Jean Patou, and by 1986 he had the world on a string. In 1988, Lacroix designed the costumes for American Ballet Theatre’s revival of Gaîté Parisienne—jawdropping confections beribboned, polka-dotted, and striped. Theater, opera, ballet—in these spaces Lacroix’s imagination soars without limits. SCAD Lacoste’s exhibition celebrates the designer’s extensive work with the Comédie-Française, a collaboration that began in the 1990s. —Laura Jacobs