Galliano with gala fashion boring

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aAt Monday night’s Met Gala, the person on everyone’s lips didn’t even walk the red carpet. His designs did. The event marked a comeback for controversial fashion designer John Galliano, a man who was effectively banned from the industry in 2011 after making a number of anti-Semitic comments. But judging by the sheer number of stars wearing his designs, you wouldn’t have known it.

From Kim Kardashian’s controversial silver corset dress, designed by Galliano for Maison Margiela, to his viral creations for Gala co-chairs Bad Bunny and Zendaya (who wore two Galliano looks for the occasion), the 63-year-old designer’s presence was noticed. Gwendoline Christie and Adrien Brody also wore his designs, as did Ariana Grande, who performed for guests in one of his couture runway looks.

Galliano is a name that most people have heard of, regardless of whether they work in fashion. To some, he is the prodigy of Central Saint Martins, whose graduate collection, Les Incroyables, took him to the top of the industry, prompting him to start his own eponymous label. To others, he is the subversive sartorial genius who revived Givenchy and Dior, with a talent rivaled only by that of fellow CSM graduate, the late Alexander McQueen. A select group may know him simply as the man behind Carrie Bradshaw’s iconic newspaper dress.

But many more people will know him for his dramatic fall from grace. In 2011, Galliano made three anti-Semitic outbursts in Paris. On one occasion he was filmed saying to a group of nearby diners at a restaurant: ‘I love Hitler. People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your ancestors, would all be gassed.” On another night, he called a nearby restaurant an “Asian asshole.”

After the clip surfaced, Galliano was fired from Dior, where he had worked as creative director, and found guilty of racism and anti-Semitism by a Paris court. He was rightly shunned. A comeback has been made step by step. After two years in exile, during which he sobered up and sought advice from Rabbi Barry Marcus, Galliano was invited as designer-in-residence at Oscar de la Renta. He then joined Maison Margiela in 2014, where he oversaw the creative direction of the house, down to a fairly low level. At least until recently.

January marked the first time in more than a decade that one of Galliano’s shows has garnered the kind of frenzied passion akin to his work at Dior and Givenchy. His couture Margiela show in spring 2024 was simply a miracle. Models wore prosthetics and corsets, contorting their bodies as they performed – not just walked – down the catwalk in flesh-like garments that defied feeling and sensibility. The waistlines were contracted to impossible proportions. Headgear was supplied with full face masks and goggles. Gowns had pubic hair. It was dystopian, destructive and wonderfully decadent. Fashion described the collection as a “stunning, shockingly more 100 percent Galliano experience than fashion has seen for years,” while Another magazine said it would “change fashion forever”.

“His last Margiela show was a huge success because it was all Galliano and zero Margiela,” says Kerry Taylor, author of Galliano: Spectacular Fashion and founder of Kerry Taylor Auctions. “It was the most beautiful show in Paris.”

Since then, Galliano’s clothes have been worn by an increasing number of A-list celebrities – Miley Cyrus wore Margiela to the Grammys; Kendall Jenner also chose the brand for the Vanity Fair Oscar party.

“If John Galliano were to be welcomed back into the fashion industry, it could signal a shift in attitudes towards forgiveness and second chances,” says Kamilla Jones, lecturer in fashion, business and management at the University of East London. “I don’t think Galliano left for good, but rather took a break. His potential return could indicate that some in the industry have confidence in his rehabilitation and artistic abilities, despite his past scandals.”

But is the industry really willing to forgive and forget? It seems Vogue editor Anna Wintour certainly thinks so. She is known to oversee which Gala guests wear which designers, and it was said that she originally wanted the museum’s exhibition to feature a retrospective of Galliano rather than the Costume Institute’s archives. Ultimately, this year’s theme was “Sleeping Beauties: Awakening Fashion”. Meanwhile, she was one of several leading industry figureheads to sing the designer’s praises in Kevin Macdonald’s recent documentary, High and Low – John Gallianowhich charted his rise and fall and rehabilitation.

“I wasn’t surprised that he dressed so many stars,” Macdonald told me. “Many people get very carried away with the idea that there is a conspiracy going on at the upper echelons of fashion, with Anna Wintour controlling everything. Anna clearly wants to help John because she sees him as a brand and thinks he is incredibly talented. I don’t think there’s any mystery to that. There is no financial gain for her. In any case, it was a risk to involve her in the documentary, because LVMH (the luxury goods company behind Louis Vuitton, among others) is one of its most important advertisers.

The fact that Macdonald managed to recruit such a bevy of high-profile talking heads for his film – Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Charlize Theron all star – is a testament to Galliano’s talent, and perhaps indicative of an industry eager for him to return. After all, there is currently a large creative vacuum in fashion, which was once filled by Galliano. In January, Matthew Williams stepped down from Givenchy, which, like Dior, is owned by LVMH; and we have yet to discover who will design the fashion house’s Spring 2025 collection, which will be shown in Paris in September. If The times reported, Galliano is currently unavailable for his usual spot in front of Margiela during Paris Couture Week in June. “Personally, I would be happy if he returns to Givenchy,” says Taylor. “Galliano would once again have the beautiful haute couture atelier to work with, with the ability to make his dreams come true.”

It would also mark an industry first, as houses within the haute couture industry rarely rehire their creative directors. “This would mark an interesting departure from the norm and there is no doubt that Galliano’s supporters and detractors will be watching closely to see what novelty he might bring to the label after his first term there,” says Caroline Alexander, senior lecturer in fashion at Kingston School of Art.

However, Macdonald remains skeptical of such a move as Galliano’s addictions were fueled by the intensity of his work at Dior. “I think he’s trying to keep his life calmer,” he says. “He knows his obsessive tendencies can lead him back to an unhealthy place. He enjoys being with Margiela because it is smaller-scale and he gets artistic freedom.” That’s not to say that if a deal was on the table, he might not accept it. “I do know one thing: John would really like to have his own label back, his name back.” Currently, the Galliano label is owned by LVMH. Until Macdonald’s documentary, in which they participated, the brand remained fairly quiet about anything related to the designer.

“I was surprised that they were as cooperative as they were,” Macdonald says. “But I think it’s very clear that they realize that the John era at Dior was the big era, and maybe they were so willing to talk to me and air their dirty laundry because they think that’s the best way could be to get him to come back. .”

Perhaps some of the excitement surrounding Galliano speaks to a broader problem within the fashion industry. It’s no secret that today’s young British designers are facing an inordinate number of financial and logistical hurdles, especially post-Brexit. As an established name, albeit a tainted one, Galliano perhaps has more creative freedom than most. “I can’t think of any other artist, in any field, who has made such a remarkable comeback after such a catastrophe,” Macdonald added. “And he didn’t just come back with a second-rate career; it is now back at the top of the fashion tree. I think part of that has to do with the fact that fashion is a pretty boring place, and John is anything but boring. People are just responding to what John has always done and doing it better than he has done in a long time.”

It will also inevitably evoke nostalgia for a bygone era in British fashion, when Galliano and McQueen were at the upper echelons of the industry, staging landmark shows and creating collections that have only grown in size over the years.

“Their heyday was the most exciting time in fashion, when it meant the most to people and had as global a reach as ever before,” says Macdonald. However, he adds that he doesn’t think there is a grand conspiracy at work – one designed to return Galliano to glory. “So it’s not who (he) is,” he says. “He’s someone who shoots from the hip. He wants to continue doing what he is good at.”