Dior To Let Go of John Galliano: When Provocation Goes Way Too Far {Fashion Notes}

 

Dior hired John Galliano in 1996 for a reason, because they wanted to rejuvenate their image with a huge dose of eccentricity and provocation. On March 1st, 2011, they decided it just went too far and did a disservice to their image. Le Figaro reports that a procedure for his dismissal has been started.

After an amateur cellphone video surfaced featuring Galliano launching into a a racist rant which seems to be encouraged by the anonymous filmmaker and party trying to push a drunkard who happens to be famous to trip even further in front of a camera, Dior obviously had little choice left...

 

The video footage has the word "provocation" written all over it. Galliano saying things like "I love Hitler" as if he thought he could get away with it like wearing an extravagant, shocking outfit that will make your eyes pop out of their head. Maybe he could, if he were just an anonymous drunkard.

Provocation again is apparent where those strangers, who seemed titillated by their encounter with a famous personality who had lost control under the influence of alcohol, are harassing him with more questions, chuckling, sounding amused rather than shocked and asking for more compromising statements for their visual archives or anecdote reservoir instead of letting him stew in his alcohol. Who on earth would film you slyly and try to make you talk more, if they were kind or had better things to do? Why would they pretend they did not know where he was from, as they say, although they acknowledged afterwards having recognized him instantly?

How disconnected from reality for Galliano to think he could get away with hate statements which are not only morally wrong, but illegal. He was clearly not thinking anyway.

Apparently, as several people have come forward, it's been a pattern for John Galliano to sit at La Perle in the midst of the Jewish neighborhood - the fact that there is an ethnic neighborhood admittedly points to a more general structural unease already - and occasionally hurl racist anti-semitic insults at the café patrons.

The video, which has not been officially verified, featured by The Sun was reportedly filmed in December 2010, that is, not on the night of the most recent incident.

You can watch a bout of destructive and self-destructive impulses played out for you at The Sun.