PARIS — The morning after unveiling their secret spring 2020 collaboration, the designers Dries Van Noten and Christian Lacroix explained how it happened and why. This interview has been edited and condensed.

Dries Van Noten When I was thinking about this collection, I was thinking, the world is so strange at the moment, with Trump, with Johnson, with Brazil burning, I could go one of two ways: very gray and grim, or the opposite, using fashion not as a dream but maybe a cure. So I was looking to the ’80s and ’90s couture, and Lacroix, and what he stood for: beauty, excess, freedom. And then I thought: Why not email him? I had met him once but didn’t know him.

Christian Lacroix I was not so sad about having left this world. Fashion was never my cup of tea, really. But there are a few designers I admire, and Dries is one; I like how he is sort of apart from it, and his ability to express maximalism with minimalism. And I buy his clothes; I have a museum of Dries knitwear. So when I got his email I was curious; I thought — how did he get my private email?