Galliano’s Gall
It’s a shock to the fashion world that John Galliano, the super successful designer at Dior, was fired today by his bosses at LVMH, for having mumbled anti-Semitic insults at patrons at La Perle, that annoyingly trendy bar in the Marais. Or is it? LVMH is a publicly traded company, and Dior makes up the lion’s share of its profits—even more than Louis Vuitton. Galliano had headed the label since 1996, after two years at sister company Givenchy. It was the same showmanship that led Galliano to change the role of the fashion designer that ultimately contributed to his downfall today. He was an outspoken peacock, rather than the sort of back-room artisan that Christian Dior himself was. Parading around the international jet set, wearing what sometimes looked like an entire collection at one time, Galliano carved out a new mold for designers to be their own spokesmodel. Sure, Halston and Calvin Klein had becomes stars in heir own right, traveling with the glitterati, partying in public—but Galliano turned up the volume. Witness Marc Jacobs, who heads Dior’s sibling company Louis Vuitton, posing in drag or in sexually charged layouts for magazines.
The figureheads at the top of LVMH brands need to act as such—they must court enough danger to stay in headlines, but never fall over into the abyss. Anti-Semitism is a particular sore spot for Dior: Christian Dior’s niece Francoise, pictured here, was a Nazi, and continued to raise the Hitler salute into the 1960s (she died in 1993). Still, I suspect Galliano’s sacking is less about the content of what he said and more about the context. He was drunk in a bar in a time when everyone has recording devices. As we have learned with Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, and Christian Bale, rants go round the world now, turned into songs on YouTube. In exchange for the money and fame that people like Galliano enjoy, you have the responsibility of being politically correct. You can get angry—witness Christian Bale’s rehabilitation with the public—but you can’t get ethnic about it. Au revoir, Galliano.