It's now been a week since High was released in theaters in the United States.
Short version of a long story: born into a lower-class family in Gibraltar, John Galliano grew up hiding his homosexuality and trying to avoid the violence that was rampant in his home. In 1984 he graduated from the prestigious St. Martin's School of Art with a collection titled Les Incroyables that put him on the radar of Vogue editors Hamish Bowls and André Leon Talley, but also on that of its director Anna Wintour.
The last two became his main support: in addition to finding the investors he needed to create his own firm, they campaigned for Bernard Arnault to hire him as creative director of Givenchy in 1995 and Dior in 1997, from where he was fired without contemplations after becoming (very) public in 2011 two violent, racist and anti-Semitic episodes bathed in alcohol and buried in pills that took place in the well-known La Perle café in Paris.
Even shorter version of a story that is even longer: Galliano, as happened with McQueen, was handpicked by an industry that welcomed him for his talent, but also for his history (nothing is easier to sell than the legend of a tortured genius who lived a difficult childhood and who ended up being idolized by those who rejected him) and who made him the sovereign of his most archaic system, a judge to decide what was beautiful and what was not, who dressed well and who did not, who was handsome and who is not. They gave him the keys, he burned the house.
The La Perle episodes were followed by a period of rehabilitation that included a visit to a clinic and several educational sessions with a rabbi, and a subsequent appointment in 2014 as artistic director of Maison Margiela.
This article, despite what it may seem so far, is not intended to provide a synopsis of the documentary, but rather to shed a little light on who is behind the production and why it has been made now.
With number one: Anna Wintour. She has always defended Galliano tooth and nail, and actively worked to make the documentary happen years before Macdonald agreed to take over directing it. In addition, Condé Nast Entertainment is listed as an associate producer of the film.
With number two: LVMH. The success of Dior, and consequently of the group, could not be understood without Galliano, who perfectly executed Arnault's business vision for his conglomerate: he enhanced the legend of a historic house while developing products (handbags, shoes) that sold well and boosted sales of other products that sold even better (perfumes and lipsticks). The numbers followed an upward direction while Galliano fell into a spiral of psychological problems and addictions of which one can only think that his bosses were as complicit as they were aware.
I mean: if your employer pays the salaries of the six people who offer you a light every time you put a cigarette to your lips, they must be aware that something is not quite right. Another thing is that he prefers to ignore the problem as long as you are able to design 32 collections a year. The situation, which was unsustainable, exploded on the covers of the British tabloids with an echo that is still heard around the world. Since then, LVMH has kept Galliano's time at his estate in a discreet background, losing the opportunity to make profitable one of the most brilliant periods in Dior's history.
Because right now? As Dana Thomas, author of Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of John Galliano and Alexander McQueen (Superflua), points out in her newsletter, perhaps Anna Wintour and LVMH are interested in dedicating a retrospective to him at the Met. Perhaps LVMH wants me to design again for John Galliano (that firm with his name that is owned by the group). Perhaps they want him to return to Givenchy, whose creative director position remains vacant following the departure of Matthew Williams in December.
Adding to the efforts of all parties is the latest couture collection for Margiela presented in January in Paris, applauded and celebrated by locals and strangers to the point that some have referred to the event as “the parade of the millennium.” In an interview with Tim Blanks for The Business of Fashion podcast, Kevin Macdonald confesses that he did not expect the premiere of the production to be anticipated by such a triumph on the catwalk: “I would like to think that the documentary has played a small role,” he assures. "That spending so much time talking to me, working on the tape, thinking about his past, has put John in a place where he can move forward."
Forgiven or not (it is on record in these last lines that every time she has typed any derivative of forgiveness in this text, its author has suffered a deep feeling of rejection because she considers that the offenses committed when someone is seriously ill are inseparable from their condition and, therefore, fewer offenses) Galliano is back. And she has done it in a big way.
