Full Fierce: John Galliano Interviewed by Paul Flynn for Perfect Issue 7.
John Galliano bounds into the only black room in the pristine white Maison Margiela HQ in Paris, clutching what looks like a rolled-up piece of flexible plastic in his hand. The couturier looks highly excitable. ‘I was at the dentist’s this morning,’ he explains. He has kept the eye shields from the appointment and begins to unravel the small package. ‘The way he did it, he kind of unrolled it.’ Galliano imitates his dentist, then places the shield over his eyes. Blue and red shades are refracted back, small folds keeping the protectors in place. ‘It was the sound. I was like, what is that? What is it?’ Moreover, what might it become? ‘Shades!’
The fashion mind of John Galliano is always alert. ‘There’s something I have to do with them,’ he says, coiling them neatly back up. Have we just seen the birth of next season’s Maison Margiela sunglasses? ‘Major! They just go flip!’ He repeats the exercise, to show how smartly they fold and unravel. We are here to talk about the fashion event of the year, the Maison Margiela Artisanal show, which happened under the storied Pont Alexandre III this spring. All the Galliano greatest hits were present and correct – the intricate storytelling, the eccentric theatricality of the cast list, the rousing music, the impeccable staging of it all – but this time tuned to a new age of science and vanity. Galliano played with complicated ideas of body proportion, facial alteration, history and futurism, enveloping film, performance art and nature into the presentation. An online meltdown duly followed. The maestro was back, in command – 2024’s most talked about man in fashion, for all the right reasons.
He places the eye shields to one side and gives a pleasing smile as the show is first mentioned. Looking at the eye shields casually, he accidentally offers something of his process, the complicated magic that percolates through the mind of John Galliano when he spots the fashion potential in the beauty and strangeness of the everyday. ‘It never stops,’ he says, eyes sparkling, imagination overflowing. ‘It doesn’t matter where you are. There’s inspiration everywhere.’
PF: Congratulations on the most incredible show.
JG: Thank you.
PF: Can we dissect it? The music, first of all. Tell me about finding Lucky Love, who sang at the beginning.
JG: Lucky, Lucky, Lucky. I was in LA, working with another performer and driving back through Malibu with [partner] Alexis [Roche]. He put on a number of his songs, this French guy. And I said, ‘He’s got a bit of South London in him, who is he? Who is this guy? He’s not French.’ It was some of the intonation of the words. Then we got back to where we were staying in Malibu, Alexis found some YouTube footage of him and I was like, ‘Oh no, he is quite major.’ That song, Now I Don’t Need Your Love: (singing) oh, it’s gorgeous. The timbre in his voice. We reached out to him, had a lunch. Then something came over me and I said, ‘Look, I’d kick myself if I didn’t ask, but would you sing that song?’ And he was like, ‘Yes!’ He’d reorganise his schedule. He was on board. She took it to another level.
PF: How long into the process was this? Was the characterisation and the story for the show in your head already?
JG: [By that point] I was showing him the storyboard, the maquette, the feeling. So it must have been quite… Goodness, I don’t know. Two weeks before? It was quite advanced.
PF: How were you personally at that stage of the process?
JG: I was obsessed. You become obsessed. Because all you are doing is finding solutions. Every minute of the day. Although some of it looked familiar – I love cutting on the bias and I have done corsetry. But try cutting the bias on a body-shape you have never worked on before and… well, try it. I walked into that one with my eyes open. I had been lucky enough to work with private clients, younger ones who were quite voluptuous, so I was getting into it already, pulling in that corset to the female form. I just thought, we’re ready here at Maison Margiela to take that on. It’s no secret I was dressing Kim [Kardashian] at the time. That’s where it kicked off. She’s so committed and, I mean, that body morphology? What do you call it? Body modification? She takes it to another level. So I just thought, yes. This is technique, technique, technique. It’s the discipline of couture, you know? It’s the foundation. You can’t build the House until you’ve laid that foundation. And we were really strict, once we had decided the waist shape. Only then could you build the dress on top. It was de rigueur.
PF: Was this as much a technical as creative triumph for you?
JG: We really, really pushed the ateliers. At first they thought, OK, we’re going to do a gorgeous dress. Which I did, on our regular muses here to begin with, to get the proportions, work out the design. And they were like, it’s gorgeous. Then we’re going to get the girl in to wear it. Enter all manner of beautiful, voluptuous women. You thought we were just grading up? This is where the work starts, sweethearts. I want her to look as beautiful, as ravishing, as confident as we just did on Valentine, who is our regular muse.
PF: Is fashion of this calibre able to reframe the idea of what beauty is?
JG: It did, I think. That’s part of the reason why it reached so many people. (Whispering conspiratorially) I’ve been told that I’ve had a few fashion moments in my time. But mama! This one was like… Well, normally I just piss off after the shows – I’ll grab my dogs and I’m on my way home. [But] we were backstage with the muses and it just went bananas. I was just like, what happened? People were clapping, they were stamping their feet – it was like the theatre, like opera. Then the avalanche of what happened after, which I haven’t experienced before. It’s recorded in a completely different way now.
PF: Because the metrics of success are instantly available to you online?
JG: I mean, those kids that were mimicking the way Leon [Dame] walked, or shoving pillows up their skirts to recreate a silhouette. Or trying the make-up. Putting on trench coats back to front. When I was young it was all about that. A show should give that kind of thing to kids. You haven’t got those budgets but at least you can turn your trench coat back to front.
Seeing all that, I thought: wow. Then mother, Pat [McGrath], decides to give a masterclass, because everyone is getting it nearly right but not quite right. Do it, do it. People didn’t sleep, all over the world, to stay up and watch the masterclass.
PF: I would say…
JG: No wait. Wait! Three weeks in, fourth, it’s still going. The cover of frightfully important Spanish newspapers talking about the virtues of merkins, and how right and healthy they are for women’s vaginas. My therapist where I would go to do my detox said, ‘You know, Mr Galliano, what’s going on? It’s on the cover of Spanish newspapers.’ And I go, ‘I know! It won’t stop.’
PF: Is show news travelling to your therapist the way you now measure success?
No, the ultimate is when you find yourself in the countryside and a farmer comes up to you and says, ‘My wife, Mr Galliano, she saw…’ Get me out of here. Amazing.
PF: Let’s move on to the characters in the show. This is what you do. You’re the grand storyteller, bringing models to full life on the catwalk, giving them a sense of character and purpose, embodying the clothes.
JG: They were inspired by some of the characters I’d seen in the very stylised work of Brassaï. They’re so non-judgemental, those pictures. They’re living in the moment. Right at the beginning, I said I wanted everyone to take a walk with me offline. Well, she got slapped in the face at the end with all that [online reaction].
PF: Why is it important that people make space to live offline?
JG: To be in the present. I was just walking down the street with Alexis and there were buildings reflected in a puddle. Well, if you’re on your phone you don’t see that.
PF: Your eyes are not fully open?
JG: And your day is led by the first email you open, or Instagram or whatever. We were trying to find a venue. It was getting nearer and nearer the deadline. I discovered it jogging by the Seine. Ran past this place and my senses froze. Suddenly I saw the underbelly of the bridge, the architecture. I didn’t realise I was under Pont Alexandre III, which was a gift from the Tsar in better times to the French. This sense of inverted snobbery, that we could invite all our mates to Pont Alexandre III but bring them down the dank, smelly, wet stairwells to the underbelly of a make-believe café/brasserie/dive club – all those places that we have visited… in our younger days.
PF: It almost had that feeling of Jean Genet’s Paris, the thieves and the hookers.
JG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was backwards and forwards trying to get the place, which was quite a challenge. I’d seen it at night and it’s so magical. Suddenly it changed: all the lights on the little police boats going up and down, the buildings alight, the gold leaf on the statues above. It was just glorious. It’s got to be here. So we wangled it. The fates of God! Plus, it was a full moon on the night.
PF: Nature’s own blessing for the show.
JG: The energy! It rained just before the show and did all the work for us. It was heaven. I had the perfect puddle, the perfect wet, Haussmann stone and the moon. She came out. There was something in the air. Because that is when boys and girls feel very loving. When a woman is at her most fertile and men at their most destructive. There was an energy.
PF: Did you have a particular shape in mind for the corsetry or do you work it and judge when you’re happy?
JG: It developed. Seeing pictures of some of those Brassaï women and how voluptuous, curvy they were. It wasn’t just corsetry. At first, I had to recreate that shape with prostheses. Silicone. Undergarments. Then we called on the ladies who do all the undergarments for us, and once they came on board, we put the prostheses on, then the undergarments – the ritual of dressing.
PF: You have a very physical manner of describing the clothes.
JG: Oh yes, but it is very physical. Especially when corsetry is involved. So only then could we start to create the dress. There was a lot of training. My pilates teacher came in to teach the boys and girls. We were laying on yoga mats. We were all on the floor training how to close the lower ribs, how to suck up the diaphragm. ‘Hold it! And only now breathe from here.’ We were in very careful hands with doctors, even in the show. They were disguised. In case the girl goes over. It can happen, you know? Hyperventilating, over-excitement. And there’s nothing worse than seeing a girl going over and not knowing what to do. With a fashion crowd, someone always knows. They’ve got the scissors – open them up and they’ll carry on with one down.
PF: Your mind must be frantic on the night.
JG: There was a moment where some of the team were like, ‘Are we doing the right thing?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, just listen and don’t panic. If you panic, she panics. And if she panics, all the other girls are going to panic. Just follow the protocol, take the time.’ It was like military timing, because I wanted them all to be ready at the same time. There was an alarm call. Put the undergarments on, the prostheses, then the first girl would go to three quarters, then halfway for Olivier [Rizzo] to finish the styling. The make-up had been done prior to that, which was just glued, not the spray yet for the silicone finish. Then it was Pat, the many layers of make-up. Then it was Duffy for wig-o-lata [the hair]. Then Olivier would finish. They were so good.
PF: I’m taking ‘wig-o-lata’ away from this conversation.
JG: Well, Duffy was so kind. Mother needed a long column for her girls. It was like one layer, then you had to wait, second layer, third, fourth. When she first did it, it was seven layers. I said, ‘Pat, please!’ She got it down to four. It was amazing, amazing.
PF: When had you started the make-up tests for that astonishing glass look?
JG: She normally comes – we’re very honoured and grateful – and spends a week with us. We tell her the story, the influence, the inspirations. For a long time, we’ve talked about glass skin. Some of the make-up has been virtually nothing, just with serums or Vaseline or shines that would pick up on camera but not to the naked eye. Then I introduced her to a lot of the porcelain dolls that I had. Auntie. She’s being shot as we speak. Can you believe it?
PF: Who’s Auntie?
JG: She’s the muse.
PF: A doll?
JG: She’s major. The whole world has shot her. She’s being shot by Paolo Roversi as we speak. I showed her all the research, all the porcelain dolls. ‘Let’s go for it, Pat.’ She did the first test and it was weirdly intense and everyone was just, oh my God. We all clapped. (Showing a picture of a dilapidated doll in a sedan chair) That’s Auntie. She’s an artist’s model. She travels with me everywhere. Loves it. She’s getting more shoots than me, that one.
PF: Where did Auntie come from originally?
JG: I found her here in Paris, at an antique fair, show, flea market – one of those things. The chair I found somewhere else, which is a Victorian chair. They used to wheel the very fabulous society ladies around the Tuileries in them. I dumped her in there.
PF: How much did Auntie cost?
JG: No idea, but she’s brought so much joy. There’s a wonderful little aside and then we should get back to your questions. So, Auntie does the fittings with me. In the wheelchair. It used to be worse. I used to have the dolls all round my table in the office, all in various states, at the old place. Then I had so many of them they were down the stairwell. But then [everyone] got spooked out by them. Alexis said, ‘It’s freaking people out.’ I said, ‘How can dolls be freaking people out?’ I had to minimise some of them. I used to have them all sitting round at a meeting. Six of them, just sitting there. Auntie sitting in her wheelchair. We’re talking about people like L’Oréal that come to visit. But they love Auntie. Love her. Everyone loves Auntie.
PF: She’s quite a bellwether to test people’s resolve for a meeting, I guess. Shall we get back to the show?
JG: Oh no, I didn’t finish my Auntie story! Thomas [Riguelle, Margiela’s fit model] came up to me and said, ‘There’s no boys.’ I took him to one side and said, ‘Do you know what? You’re going to be the boy doll.’ We wrapped a bit of wool around him, stuck a monocle on him. Thank you, Thomas. He was stuck on the display cabinet. The reason I mentioned it is because, well… Auntie started responding. Her knee starts going. She starts to get a bit excited. Because there was a male doll. She fell in love with Thomas.
PF: The night-time really does do funny things to people.
JG: Stories like that are such fun when everybody’s under so much tension. People were howling. And I swear I saw her little leg going. ‘You alright, girl? Someone get her a drink!’
PF: Can you expand a little on what you were saying before about the inverted snobbery of taking highbrow people into the underbelly of the city?
JG: It’s something we’ve played with before.
PF: Do you think that fashion is one of the few industries where talent allows you to cross class?
JG: Well, this one show was a kind of societal and cultural phenomenon, really. After it, I did sit down and try to understand. What happened? Let’s just talk intelligently about it. Apart from all that inclusivity, people saw them portraying their own feelings about the world and what is going on. We can all associate with those characters. We’ve been through some of those feelings ourselves. She was cold. Or he was shielding himself against the rain. But people were reading a lot more into it, which is fascinating. Perhaps this was an antidote to the algorithms that are making creative decisions for us and the creatives who rely on that data? And maybe, because of the emotion that was through the lyrics, the set, the authenticity, the passion, people could see that it was real and that’s why it hit out to so many people. We weren’t chasing any market. We were doing what we believed in, with our hearts. Emotion.
PF: Is this what people really want out of fashion in 2024?
JG: I speak to the kids around me and it was almost like a world that we created, but you felt invited. Especially if you were digital. You could enter it and take it somewhere else. Which is what those kids were doing at home. Or running down a railway station mimicking Leon’s walk. It’s almost an open invitation. That’s wonderful. For me, seeing those kids was the best review. It was just the best. Their reaction to Pat’s make-up. The best.
PF: How much do you engage with life online?
JG: I do. But I have to be very careful when I engage. If I start at breakfast, it becomes a habit. And I have to keep my habits in check. It can be all-consuming. It is habit forming, we know. Boom. Boom. Boom. It’s a hit. How many hits can you have before that doesn’t become interesting any more? One has to be careful, I think.
PF: When did online become a thing for you?
JG: I suppose when I… I had a bit of time off between my last day job and this one.
PF: I like the understatement of running Dior as a day job.
JG: No, dear, she wasn’t treading water. I think it was when I came back into it. I was seduced. Persuaded. Seduced. By Renzo [Rosso, president of Only The Brave OTB the parent company of Maison Margiela]. When we were at [the old Margiela HQ on rue Saint Maur], he closed the building down, turned the security cameras off, and said, ‘You come with Alexis and just see how you feel.’ When I went there, I thought, this feels really good. Renzo said, ‘I think there’s someone here who really wants to meet you. Martin [Margiela].’ OK. I remember ringing Anna [Wintour]. She said, ‘Do it at your home.’ So, we do it at home, arranged a tea, four o’clock or whatever. He was there until midnight. He just told me everything that I could ever have researched. It was non-stop, amazing. Also revealing the fact that he’d often dreamt that a couturier would take his position. Then I remember he said at the end, ‘Take what you will of the House, John, take what you will of the DNA. Protect yourself. And make it your own.’
PF: Oh, that’s spine-tingling. Had you known Martin before?
JG: Back in the day, the late Eighties. We had lots of friends in common. There was always a contact of some sort. And I was a loyal fan. I was buying the stuff, you know. I was a client. A fan. He was so peaceful. It was everything.
PF: Have you taken the House and made it your own?
JG: Honestly, everything I do here is because I got the psychology of Martin. I’m not Martin. I’m John Galliano. And it would be audacious of me to even think that I could do what Martin did. Sometimes I’ve experienced, at Galliano, when you just do the bias cuts you can get pushed into a corner. Or at Dior. I don’t want that to happen this time. I want the spotlight back on the clothes. I rather enjoy the idea of being anonymous. That appealed to me. ‘Oh, what’s she done with her hair now? She’s blonde, she’s brunette, she’s done this, done that, too many fillers. It’s too this, too that, arse is too big, oh, she’s put on so much weight.’ Hello! It is about the clothes, the technique.
PF: You seem incredibly happy.
JG: I am. Because you’re here, dear.
PF: What I mean is, it feels like this collection has a significance for you beyond a collection of clothes on a runway.
JG: I’m always inspired. I’ve always worked with a narrative. I mean, the impact has been enormous: culturally, societally, the things that I realise and understand about the algorithms and how people react to something more authentic. That’s the impact it’s had. It’s maybe reminded some people as well of the power of creativity. I have to choose my words carefully here. I heard stories after, that certain creative directors had meetings the morning after the show saying, ‘Right, what are we going to do?’ (Laughs) There was this picture going around. It was so naughty. This guy who looked like an 18th-century painting, with doctors hanging around him. He’s passing away. And someone had very cruelly written over it, ‘All of the other artistic directors in Paris today.’ So naughty!
Interview: Paul Flynn
Photographer: Tim Walker
Fashion Editor: Katie Grand
Hair: Lachlan Mackie
Make-up: Dame Pat McGrath for Pat McGrath Labs, Team Pat McGrath
Production: Truro Productions
Producer: Susannah Phillips
Production Manager: Kate Edmunds
Casting: Jess Hallett
Talent: Emeline Hoareau, Gwendoline Christie, Hannah Motler, Leon Dame, Nyaduola Gabriel, Nyakier Buong, Sheila Bawar, Thomas Riguelle
Studio manager: Alex Pasley-Tyler
Photographic assistance: Antonio Perricone, Ruby Pluhar
Hair assistance/creative collaborator: Pip Paz-Howlett
All clothing throughout by Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano, 2024 collection