Six years later, he left to reorganize a French state-owned holding company, Boussac, which owned Christian Dior.

(For competitive reasons, Fendi, which is part of the same luxury group that owns Dior, won't reveal the craftsman's name or the name of the factory.)

Boussac owned Christian Dior, the department store Le Bon Marché, the retail shop Conforama and the diapers industrial Peaudouce.

Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which owns Dior, has pushed that further.

A year later, Financiere Agache, the conglomerate that owned Dior, was taken over by a group of French investors led by a real-estate magnate, Bernard Arnaud.

But there is absolutely no substance to the speculation, said Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy-Louis Vuitton which owns Dior.

He came back to France looking for a challenge and found it when he took over Boussac, the bankrupt textile and retail company that owned Christian Dior.

The $8 million financing for Lacroix's new business comes from Financiere Agache, the French conglomerate that owns Dior.

LVMH had been purchasing fashion companies for a while and already owned Dior, Givenchy, and other luxury brands.

Financiere Agache, which owns Christian Dior and Christian Lacroix, has a controlling interest in LVMH, which puts three leading couture establishments under the same corporate umbrella.