RUNWAY: John Galliano SS12

John Galliano's last collection last January was rife with Galliano's storytelling and wild styling, it was an incredibly strong and beautifully tailored collection. Fast forward to March when news broke that Galliano had been arrested in the Marais District in Paris for Anti-Semetic remarks he made towards other patrons at a cafe he frequented. Long story short: LVMH, who wholly owns Christian Dior, removed Galliano as Creative Director. Shortly thereafter Christian Dior, which owns and funds Galliano's eponymous line, took a vote of their Directors and decided to remove Galliano from his namesake house. Galliano then packed his bags and went to rehab (reportedly in Arizona).

This past Wednesday, the start of Paris Fashion Week, Galliano returned to Paris for his trial. The verdict from the three judge panel won't be read until September. Since LVMH removed Galliano from Dior in March, the Dior womens line and both mens and womens John Galliano lines have not had head designers. The atelier that worked under Galliano continued to work on the mens and womens collections and it was them who fashioned and executed this collection, under the direction of Galliano's close collaborator Bill Gaytten, who took the bow after the finale.


The SS12 collection had all the markings of a John Galliano collection, like sharp tailoring and wild styling. When pared down, however, the collection relied far too heavily on the eccentric styling we're used to from a Galliano show. What was in effect a good attempt to create a Galliano-esque collection lacked focus. John Galliano's commentary and story are a large part of what makes his collections so powerful and that was not present in this collection. The collection was made well and had good, commercial clothes but in the end, it lacked that extra spice that Galliano infused into all his collections.

Under no circumstances do we endorse or approve of what John Galliano said and did that night in Paris four months ago. However, strictly speaking about his talent as a designer, his talents were missed  today.