This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/emma-brockes-blog/2013/feb/15/john-galliano-new-york-post
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Poor John Galliano! Can't people see he's simply a charming subversive? | Poor John Galliano! Can't people see he's simply a charming subversive? |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| John Galliano, fashion designer and idiot-when-drunk, either did or didn't get up in Hasidic drag a few days ago at New York Fashion Week. In any event, he made a splash merely by attending, under the cover of Oscar de la Renta, in what appears to be the latest stage of his post-racist outburst rehabilitation drive. | John Galliano, fashion designer and idiot-when-drunk, either did or didn't get up in Hasidic drag a few days ago at New York Fashion Week. In any event, he made a splash merely by attending, under the cover of Oscar de la Renta, in what appears to be the latest stage of his post-racist outburst rehabilitation drive. |
| What, people wondered, was he trying to say? Was it another manifestation of what Patricia Field described two years ago as a charming subversion of cultural expectations? | |
| Or, as the New York Post declaimed, an unforgiveable piss-take? The Anti-Defamation League popped up with the point of order that Galliano had not, in fact, worn Hasidic garb: "Hasidim do not wear fedora hats, pinstripe pants, blue jackets or an ascot tie", said a fashion-friendly spokesman – although in happier circumstances, one imagines Galliano spinning it as an adorable new take on an old religious favourite. Yeshiva-chic, if you will. Anyway, it was at least an improvement on his pirate look. | Or, as the New York Post declaimed, an unforgiveable piss-take? The Anti-Defamation League popped up with the point of order that Galliano had not, in fact, worn Hasidic garb: "Hasidim do not wear fedora hats, pinstripe pants, blue jackets or an ascot tie", said a fashion-friendly spokesman – although in happier circumstances, one imagines Galliano spinning it as an adorable new take on an old religious favourite. Yeshiva-chic, if you will. Anyway, it was at least an improvement on his pirate look. |
| As laundry cycles go, Galliano's shift from pariah to tentative comeback status has been relatively long in the making. Martha Stewart bounced back from her jail term in two minutes. For Galliano, it has been the best part of two years out in the cold after his rant in a Paris restaurant was captured on video and resulting in a €6000 fine, suspension from Dior and a mixture of horror and delight in all who saw it. Horror at his weird invocation of the Holocaust to berate fellow diners, and delight in the mask slipping – not on Galliano so much as on the world he inhabits. | As laundry cycles go, Galliano's shift from pariah to tentative comeback status has been relatively long in the making. Martha Stewart bounced back from her jail term in two minutes. For Galliano, it has been the best part of two years out in the cold after his rant in a Paris restaurant was captured on video and resulting in a €6000 fine, suspension from Dior and a mixture of horror and delight in all who saw it. Horror at his weird invocation of the Holocaust to berate fellow diners, and delight in the mask slipping – not on Galliano so much as on the world he inhabits. |
| The very reason why fashion people rallied round him is, one imagines, part of everyone else's lingering disgust with the man. The suggestion that his status – as a troubled artist battling the dark side of genius; an industry-leader withstanding the incomparable pressures of the fashion business and a jaunty free-thinker in a world that stigmatizes difference – qualified him for our sympathy just never really stacked up. | The very reason why fashion people rallied round him is, one imagines, part of everyone else's lingering disgust with the man. The suggestion that his status – as a troubled artist battling the dark side of genius; an industry-leader withstanding the incomparable pressures of the fashion business and a jaunty free-thinker in a world that stigmatizes difference – qualified him for our sympathy just never really stacked up. |
| No wonder the guy slipped up in a moment of drunken self-soothing and divulged his love for Hitler to fellow restaurant-goers, adding with dreamy-eyed nostalgia that back in the day, their parents would have been gassed? What an original! | No wonder the guy slipped up in a moment of drunken self-soothing and divulged his love for Hitler to fellow restaurant-goers, adding with dreamy-eyed nostalgia that back in the day, their parents would have been gassed? What an original! |
| It's the TS Eliot emergency cord, pulled every time a great talent does or says something obnoxious – usually antisemitic, for some reason – and to shield the sanctity of his art from his mortal failings. The problem is that unlike The Waste Land, Galliano's contribution to the wider culture is not universally recognized as transcendent, unfairly perhaps and in keeping with what fashion people will see as widespread philistinism towards their art. To the untutored eye, the guy looks like an idiot, and his outburst, like confirmation of what one has long suspected: that the fashion world's promotion of a single, emaciated and until recently deracinated interpretation of physical "perfection" would one day spill out of the aesthetic into more tangible modes of offense. | It's the TS Eliot emergency cord, pulled every time a great talent does or says something obnoxious – usually antisemitic, for some reason – and to shield the sanctity of his art from his mortal failings. The problem is that unlike The Waste Land, Galliano's contribution to the wider culture is not universally recognized as transcendent, unfairly perhaps and in keeping with what fashion people will see as widespread philistinism towards their art. To the untutored eye, the guy looks like an idiot, and his outburst, like confirmation of what one has long suspected: that the fashion world's promotion of a single, emaciated and until recently deracinated interpretation of physical "perfection" would one day spill out of the aesthetic into more tangible modes of offense. |
| Poor Galliano. The Hitler thing was so adolescent – not even adolescent, prepubescent, like a kid saying a naughty word to provoke a reaction – that you almost feel sorry for him and inevitably the backlash is thought to have Gone Too Far; the bully to have become the bullied. Give him a break, ssays the Daily Beast. | Poor Galliano. The Hitler thing was so adolescent – not even adolescent, prepubescent, like a kid saying a naughty word to provoke a reaction – that you almost feel sorry for him and inevitably the backlash is thought to have Gone Too Far; the bully to have become the bullied. Give him a break, ssays the Daily Beast. |
| Everyone deserves a second chance, says Abraham Foxman at the ADL. "He was punished," he said, "because of what he said, and I think deservedly so. But if he's punished for the rest of his life, he will become an antisemite." | Everyone deserves a second chance, says Abraham Foxman at the ADL. "He was punished," he said, "because of what he said, and I think deservedly so. But if he's punished for the rest of his life, he will become an antisemite." |
| So there you have it. The time has come to lay aside our differences, pull together as one and put our backs into stopping John Galliano from adopting a sober dislike of those who, latterly, he only had problems with while drunk. | So there you have it. The time has come to lay aside our differences, pull together as one and put our backs into stopping John Galliano from adopting a sober dislike of those who, latterly, he only had problems with while drunk. |
| Bravo! | Bravo! |