The Return of John Galliano..Well sort of!...
The disgraced fashion designer John Galliano was nowhere to be seen at Oscar de la Renta’s fashion show on Tuesday night, though the luminaries in attendance, including Anna Wintour, Valentino and Diane von Furstenberg, were certainly aware of his presence, as were the paparazzi lined up three deep on the sidewalk 25 floors below on West 42nd Street.
The startling designs that made their way down the runway were the clearest sign yet that Mr. Galliano, who was dismissed from the house of Dior in 2011 after a drunken anti-Semitic tirade at a Paris cafe but who has been sitting in as a guest in Mr. de la Renta’s studio for the past month, may be contemplating a professional comeback.
If so, it will have been carefully orchestrated over the past year by some of Mr. Galliano’s chief supporters in the fashion industry, most notably his close friends Ms. Wintour and Jonathan Newhouse, the chairman of Condé Nast International, who have approached Jewish leaders, including rabbis and the Anti-Defamation League, on his behalf.
Their endorsements have made possible the return of a designer who some thought would never find work again after a video surfaced showing Mr. Galliano taunting other patrons with comments that included “I love Hitler.”
His surprise involvement in the design of Mr. de la Renta’s fall 2013 collection has led to enormous curiosity in the insular world of fashion about a future for Mr. Galliano, but it has also raised questions as to whether the public is ready to forgive someone who was convicted by the French courts of making anti-Semitic remarks. On Wednesday, The New York Post published on its cover a photograph of Mr. Galliano wearing a designer outfit that the newspaper characterized as bearing a resemblance to Hasidic attire.
Several Jewish customers and retailers have also protested privately to Mr. de la Renta, including Sandy Schreier, one of the world’s biggest collectors of couture fashion, who said she was initially horrified when she heard that Mr. Galliano would be working there, even in a vague capacity, though she has since softened her position.
“I assumed if he was coming there, he was not coming there to have cookies,” Ms. Schreier said in a phone interview from her home in Southfield, Mich. “As a Jew, I felt very upset about it.”
Even as Mr. Galliano’s involvement in Mr. de la Renta’s fall collection offended some customers and sparked outrage among others who perceived his rehabilitation to be insincere, several editors are now publicly endorsing the return of a designer they believe to be among the greatest talents of the past 20 years. Ms. Wintour, Vogue’s editor, and Grace Coddington, its creative director, have met privately with him to express their support, as have other editors who have known the English designer since he started a label in London in the late 1980s. On Wednesday, Ms. Wintour declined to comment
Mr. Newhouse, of Condé Nast, has helped Mr. Galliano with contacts among religious leaders over the past two years, including Rabbi Barry Marcus of the Central Synagogue in London and Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of Britain. Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said on Wednesday that he had met with Mr. Galliano on at least five occasions and that he believed the designer was sincere in his apologies.
“He was punished because of what he said, and I think deservedly so,” Mr. Foxman said. “But if he’s punished for the rest of his life, he will become an anti-Semite.”
Mr. Galliano has also said he is seeking treatment for alcoholism, and he has told friends that he has no memory of the 2011 outburst. Mr. Newhouse said Mr. Galliano had told him he was appalled by his own behavior.
“He has straightened out his life in every way and is taking his life in a new direction,” Mr. Newhouse said. “I hope people can see that and give him another chance.”
In January, Ms. Wintour asked Mr. de la Renta to invite Mr. Galliano to take up a temporary residency in his New York studio, and Mr. de la Renta said he immediately agreed. The designers have a history of working in Paris at the same time, when Mr. de la Renta designed for Balmain.
While Mr. Galliano, 52, was purposefully kept out of public view in the designer’s studio (only a few beauty editors spotted him there during a recent fragrance unveiling), his involvement has led to speculation about his future, including as a possible successor to Mr. de la Renta, who is 80. Mr. de la Renta, who has acknowledged that he was treated for cancer and is recovering, has given no indication of his intention to retire, but he has not ruled out asking Mr. Galliano to stay.
The show on Tuesday offered a rare view of two of fashion’s most dynamic hands at work in a single collection, and the results reflected a great degree of Mr. Galliano’s influence. Mr. de la Renta showed a floral jacquard jacket in a cocoon shape that is common to Mr. Galliano’s work, and many of the opening suits bore a strong resemblance to those Mr. Galliano created for Dior, at least in the way they were styled, with the models wearing felt cloche hats and their jackets bound by thin leather belts that were knotted at the waist, rather than buckled.
Executives at the studio, who would not speak publicly as a matter of policy, said that Mr. Galliano had given advice to the design team and that he had been a regular presence over the past few weeks. They said that he spent hours leading a seminar in how to tie the belts properly and that he had been in the studio well after midnight on the night before the show.
Liz Rosenberg, a spokeswoman for Mr. Galliano, said that during the show, he watched on a monitor backstage with Mr. de la Renta. “He felt the thrill of being back in the midst of doing what he had been doing for many years,” she said.
Mr. de la Renta said on Wednesday that while Mr. Galliano’s creativity was well known, his work ethic was also “extraordinary.”
“Like me, he is a perfectionist,” Mr. de la Renta said.
Mr. de la Renta previously said he was unconcerned about the backlash he might face for supporting Mr. Galliano, but some loyal customers were skeptical about the results after the show.
Ms. Schreier said she had looked at Mr. de la Renta’s collection online to see if there was any reflection of Mr. Galliano in the clothes. “It is undeniable,” she said. “The only thing Oscar has admitted to was that he was backstage. I don’t think he was just there taking up space.”
As a customer, Ms. Schreier said she believed that Mr. Galliano was one of the most talented designers she had ever encountered. But writing an essay about her couture collection recently, she said she could not bring herself to include his name among its highlights. Now she has reconsidered her position and has decided Mr. Galliano deserves a second chance.
“Almost everyone is willing to give a second chance,” she said, “but I am not willing to give a third chance.” And he truly deserves one. There is too much power in how CERTAIN folks are punished!
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