In Arles, bridesmaids are wearing red in homage to Christian Lacroix. The Provençal city of blond-coloured stone and magnificent Roman ruins has embraced its prodigal son's return with zeal. Lacroix is back after a 20-year absence to dress the street lights in pink and curate an exhibition of his couture and his roots in a Renaissance palace across the Rhône from his boyhood home. It's the same palace where he played truant from school and dreamed of becoming an artist. Now he's created a jewel box of those dreams, a rich visual autobiography. Beside the paintings of minotaurs, matadors, Arlesian ladies in traditional silks and satins, and the Picassos he admired long ago is the exuberant haute couture he later created in their image.

Arles is a fiery, erotic, fascinating town with a lot of edge. "Little Rome", as some call it, claims to have France's most beautiful women. Teenagers canoodle in the Roman ruins, writers, translators and editors come and go from Actes Sud and Editions Philippe Picquier publishers, and students from the national university of photography and Europe's best film animation college mingle in its lovely squares with winegrowers and farmers.