John Galliano has packed in his tabis and bid Maison Margiela farewell after ten years at the helm. The eminent British fashion designer shared his formal resignation with a candid letter posted to social media where he expressed his “joyous gratitude” for the tenure and the theatrical sartorial creations he conjured up over the decade.
In fashion’s game of creative director revolving door—a phrase coined to describe the constant appointments and departures of artistic leads at prestigious luxury houses—his surprising absence has piqued interest. Who will take over as successor? Where will Galliano go? For all the chatter and speculation, the 64-year-old has left us on a cliffhanger.
“The rumours…Everyone wants to know and everyone wants to dream,” he wrote. “When the time is right, all will be revealed,” he added. “For now, I take this time to express my immense gratitude. I continue to atone, and I will never stop dreaming. I, too, need to dream.”
Galliano bids the Parisian-based label goodbye on a high note. In January this year, the house presented what could be argued as Galliano’s modern magnum opus in the form of its Spring/Summer 2024 Haute Couture collection.
Hosted after dark under the Pont Alexandre III bridge, Galliano conjured the bygone world of Paris’ Belle Époque era in all its glamour—and grime. With models’ faces painted like porcelain dolls by Pat McGrath and choreographed to teeter down the runway like puppets on strings, the beauty and extravagance of the silhouettes was nothing short of a spectacle reminiscent of his 90s heyday at Christian Dior.
As it turns out, that coup de théâtre was his final bow as artistic director of the luxuriate. Galliano also spent a few months in 2024 attempting to rehabilitate his wider brand image through the release of his documentary, High & Low. Charting his climatic rise to the pinnacle of fashion to his swift fall from grace after an alcohol-fuelled anti-sematic attack in 2010, the film offered a new perspective on a man fallen out of favour.
This was something Galliano acknowledged in his statement. “Forgiving myself, for a while, was the hardest act,” he continued. “I felt guilty that my behaviour perpetuated the stereotype that creativity had to be fuelled by drink and drugs. That old-school rock-and-roll attitude. So wrong.
“With my teams, we’ve proven that creativity is never out of fashion. It’s not fuelled by those destructive forces but by a creative community that cares and considers design.”
Galliano concluded his message with a note to his atelier and a wider musing on clothing as a medium for craftsmanship. “Together, we are driven by beauty—the quest for balance, construction and the lightness of a feather.”
This story first appeared on GRAZIA International.
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