Dior designer John Galliano, 50, has been suspended by the couture house following allegations of a drunken racist rant in a Paris bar in the Marais. He had been drinking at La Perle, a bar along the Rue Vielle du Temple last Thursday. Mr Galliano is alleged to have drunkenly told a woman sitting at a table beside him: "Dirty Jew, you should be dead. Dirty Jewish face, you should be dead.” He called her a “whore” and “ugly”" then ranted to an Asian man sitting with her: "Fucking Asian bastard, I’m going to kill you."Witnesses called police during the incident, said to have taken place in front of dozens of astonished revellers. Police arrived quickly (9pm) and broke up the disturbance. Mr Galliano was briefly arrested and then released pending charges for assault.
Anti-semitic remarks are punishable by up to six months in prison in France, but Mr Galliano has not yet been charged with an offence. His lawyer, Stephane Zerbib, ‘formally denied’ that his client had made racist comments.
Dior's chief executive Sidney Toledano said: "Dior affirms with the utmost conviction its policy of zero tolerance towards any anti-semitic or racist words or behaviour. Pending the results of the inquiry, Christian Dior has suspended John Galliano from his responsibilities."
Mr Galliano was facing criminal charges and would appear in court on a date to be fixed.
Mr Galliano has been chief designer at Dior since 1996.
Born in Gibraltar and brought up in South London, he is often seen enjoying himself in the bars and café of the Marais, the historic centre of the city’s Jewish community. The Dior fall collection is scheduled to be shown next Friday, March 4, at the Rodin Museum.
oh my! that is some heavy uproar. i wonder how he feels when his collection is going down the runway and he can't represent. very sad to hear him be anti-semitic
ReplyDeleteGood for Dior. Very crever PR indeed.
ReplyDeletewhat fascinates me is this seeming middle-age breakdown among talented gay men : the suicide of MacQueen (and that of Leslie Cheung and Danny Chan if we go back a little bit in time); and now this alleged toxic racist self-combustion of Galliano.
ReplyDeleteit seems that unresolved issue of one kind or another will creep up on one in the middle years, and the results are not pretty...:(
EA
PS: and let us not forget the sad ending of Capote.
MacQueen? lol i had to
ReplyDeleteDear Dennis: As you said it's really very sad, and somehow very upsetting to me. It does not bode well for fashion at all. This is probably the end of the road for mr galliano, who is possibly one of the most brilliant designers of the 20th century, right up there with Chanel, Vionnet, Gres, etc.
ReplyDeleteDear Beauty: I can't agree. I think it could have been handled with a bit less heavy handedly. Certainly it needed to be investigated, but this is crushing indeed.
Dear EA: I'm with you there - the issue at hand seems larger than what it already is: As you've pointed out, one can't help but think that Mr Galliano's breakdown has something to do with Mcqueen's suicide (which has to do with Isabella Blow's). Perhaps it's the crush of loneliness? These people were all somewhat isolated, possibly divorced from all reality - they were "unspoilt monsters" of Truman Capote, really. They were placed in the golden cage of overwhelming material success quite suddenly - remember they were of the streets, not born into this millieu at all.
dear DG
ReplyDeleteindeed. i was really struck by how lonely he seemed in the video clip, sitting & drinking by himself in the bistro. hadn't he any friends, or drinking kaki's?
and the way he talked to the two girls off camera. if you just read his quotes in print, you would have thought he was engaged in a screaming match with them, at the very least.
but no, he was just sitting there, slurring & mouthing all that hateful stuff in a rather calm and i must say rather auntie-ish manner, as if he were just having a harmless chat with some strangers.
i was more disturbed by the cognitive dissonance between content and tone than anything else.
EA
Dear EA, They've replaced the Great Galliano with the mere stylist Ricardo Tisci, lately of Givenchy - who seems to be the slightest of talents (scratch the surface, and you'll find merely a rather glib stylist). It's a sad day for Dior, really, and for fashion in general. This enormous crushing importance placed on political correctness, even in the rarefied world of fashion! This could only happen in the era of twitter, the great dumbing down of everything to the LOWEST common denominator.
ReplyDeleteA hideous shock, and makes one turn away from fashion.