If you’re reading this, then you have seen the universally spellbound reaction to John Galliano’s Margiela Artisanal show this past week during the Paris Couture. You know that on the night of the Wolf Moon, Galliano staged his collection underneath Pont Alexandre III, conjuring a debauched Parisian nightlife scene from a bygone era. You are aware that two Pats (McGrath on makeup, Boguslawski on movement) rendered the models unrecognizable, giving them license to perform, for once, as something other than robots or celebrities. You have heard that the audience’s reaction included shouting and stomping—applause literally expressed from head-to-toe. You have read the declarations that this collection “will go down in history”. You have seen the social posts far and wide saying “I will never get over this.” You may have even watched (and rewatched) the livestream, even though it does not even feature the correct (presumably un-licensable) soundtrack, a mashup of Adele’s tribute to George Michael, as well as Max Richter, Vivaldi, and Massive Attack. It was an honor to be one of a few hundred people who saw it in person, an experience best described as time traveling to both the Paris of the 1930s and the Paris of the 1990s.
I was only in fourth grade when John Galliano was named the Creative Director of Dior and still an assistant at Vanity Fair when he was dishonorably discharged from that position, which means that Galliano was summiting his creative Everest while I was just coming of age. My knowledge of his most famous shows is cobbled together from videos (I think I’ve seen them all), anecdotes from older colleagues, and of course from Vogue. And while I never owned any of them, Galliano’s designs—the bug-eye sunglasses, the J’Adore bottle, the saddle bag, and of course the bias-cut dress—are as much a part of my visual vocabulary as the decor of my childhood bedroom.
Since he took over Margiela in 2014, I’ve had the privilege of seeing several of Galliano’s presentations, which have usually gone down in a clinically pristine white box at the Grand Palais. The setting is physically adjacent to the majestic glass exhibition hall, the once-and future home of grand Chanel shows, but is spiritually on another planet. John famously does not take a bow, a signal of both modesty and his respect for Martin Margiela, who himself never bowed, but this has never felt natural coming from the designer who was for decades fashion’s foremost showman. A persistent undercurrent of hesitation—fear, even—has occasionally been palpable, and I’ve sometimes felt that I was only witnessing a shadow of the earlier Galliano, a gouache instead of the oil painting, that I missed the reign of King John.
On Thursday night, any shred of restraint went up in actual smoke, delivering the fantasy and poetry my generation had been promised by the fashion industry. It had the world-building of the 2007 Brassaï collection, made famous by The September Issue; the exquisite and fragile beauty of the bootstrapped show in São Schlumberger’s hôtel particulier; a striking juxtaposition of the extreme hourglass corsets and Kim Kardashian’s actual body; and the out-of-nowhere punch of Les Incroyables, Galliano’s legendary Central Saint Martin’s graduation show. All alchemized to make some new magic.
As Galliano expert and fellow child-of-the-’90s Alexander Fury put it: “It was the best of the best at their best.” (Fury also told me that Gwendoline Christie had been requesting Galliano show references from him for weeks; little did Fury know that she was method acting.) And by fully owning his professional and personal past—the location may as well have been La Perle—Galliano has overcome and surpassed them both. No fear.
Galliano’s triumph arrives just as High & Low, director Kevin Macdonald’s unflinching biographical documentary, is set to debut in theaters this March. I have wondered since Thursday if revisiting his lowest moments for Macdonald’s interviews perhaps helped Galliano finally achieve the feeling that there’s nothing left to hide, and ultimately gave him the courage to go as far as he did last week. (Full disclosure, Conde Nast is a production partner and I’m an associate producer.)
The show—and, frankly the reaction to it—stands in staunch opposition to the algorithmically determined cultural trends that dictate so many of all-too-familiar clothes we see these days, even from heritage houses—call it trickle-up fashion. Today it is the case that the tail that is often wagging the dog, bringing us ever toward the mindless middlebrow. (John Galliano, I’d wager, has never come across Quiet Luxury.) Margiela’s Artisinal show deserves to be recognized as a cri de coeur for creativity and individual taste even outside of fashion circles, but let’s start with the ready-to-wear collections that we’ll see in a couple of weeks’ time. I texted Vogue.com editor Chloe Malle after the show saying that “the fashion world shifted tonight.” I hope that’s true.
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