The storied French label Christian Dior said Tuesday, 2nd March; it was firing the zany British bad boy John Galliano for his anti-Semitic incident. The news comes quite as shock and has thrown me quite in a state of perplex and indecisiveness to what is more disturbing. Is it the end of John Galliano’s career that is more saddening or his unprecedented behavior more shocking? 

The facts state that Dior announced it had suspended Galliano following his arrest over an alleged anti-Semitic assault in a Paris bar. The same day, Paris-based citizen journalism site Citizenside received a video of Galliano (which immediately went viral) on a drunken, anti-Semitic rant in the same bar the previous December. In the video Galliano hurls anti-Semitic insults at a group of Italian women and declares “I love Hitler… People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers would all be fucking gassed.” This incident has happened just before Paris Fashion Week for Autumn/Winter 2011/2012. Following the decision Dior said it still planned to go ahead with its Galliano-designed fall-winter 2011-12 collection on Friday as part of Paris fashion week.  

Making anti-Semitic remarks can bring up to six months in prison in France, and Galliano appeared in a Paris police station Monday to face the accusations against him. 

Natalie Portman, an Oscar-winning Jewish actress whose great-grandparents died in Auschwitz, had an endorsement contract with Dior for its Miss Dior Cherie fragrance. In a statement, she expressed “disgust” at John Galliano’s anti-Semitic comments. Portman said: “I am deeply shocked and disgusted by the video of John Galliano’s comments that surfaced today…I hope at the very least, these terrible comments remind us to reflect and act upon combating these still-existing prejudices that are the opposite of all that is beautiful.”

Not everyone in the fashion industry, however, shared Portman’s “disgust.” Stylist and costume designer Patricia Field went all out defending Galliano by sending an email blast to 500 friends, blogs and media. She dismissed Galliano’s anti-Semitic rants as “theater” and later, in a phone interview with WWD described Galliano’s videotaped behavior as “farce” and said she was bewildered that people in the fashion community have not recognized it as such. “It’s theater,” she said. “It’s farce. But people in fashion don’t recognize the farce in it. All of a sudden they don’t know him. But it’s OK when it’s Mel Brooks’ ‘The Producers’ singing Springtime for Hitler.”

Posted by : Matsya at 05:20 AM