Culture chat: The uncancelling of John Galliano
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 15 March 2024
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In his new documentary High and Low, Academy-award winning director Kevin Macdonald focuses on John Galliano, the one-time enfant terrible of fashion. Known for dazzling collections and a personal penchant for wearing pirate outfits, Galliano led the House of Dior from 1997 to 2011. He then “lost it all” when a series of videos surfaced showing him making drunken racist and antisemitic remarks – though that’s just one version of the story. In fact Galliano became creative director of Margiela in 2014, just three years after his “cancellation”. Lilah is joined by HTSI’s assistant editor Louis Wise and the FT’s junior fashion editor Annachiara Biondi to talk about ‘High and Low’, and how the fashion industry handles stars that do bad things.
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We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap and we’re on X @lifeandartpod. You can email us at lifeandart@ft.com. We are grateful for reviews, on Apple, Spotify etc.
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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):
– High and Low: John Galliano is out now
– Our fashion editor Carola Long’s interview with director Kevin Macdonald is here: https://on.ft.com/3wSTgx0
– The FT’s review of High and Low, by Jonathan Romney: https://on.ft.com/3Ti6B9C
– You can follow Louis Wise on X @louismwise and Instagram @louisquinze.
– Annachiara Biondi is on X @annachiara_b and on Instagram @instapini_
More or Less:
– Annachiara wants more spoken word from artists such as British-Palestinian Tasneim Zyada. You can check out Tasneim’s work on Instagram @tasneimzyada
– Louis would like to see more films that are like “extended perfume adverts”, such as Dune: Part Two. Look in our feed for our Friday culture chat about Dune Two.
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Special FT subscription offers for Life and Art podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/lifeandart
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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. Clip courtesy of Mubi.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos, and this is our Friday chat show. |
| 0:07.6 | Today we are talking about high and low, a new documentary about the fashion designer John Galliano, directed by Kevin McDonald. |
| 0:15.3 | John Galliano has been a hugely influential figure in the fashion industry. He was most famously creative director of the |
| 0:21.9 | house of Dior from 1996 all the way until 2011. And he was considered a sort of en font to read. |
| 0:28.6 | He was known for huge, whimsical collections and sort of changing fashion. That said, in 2011, |
| 0:35.5 | Galeano was fired from Dior after videos emerged of him slurring his words and making anti-Semitic and racist rants. |
| 0:43.5 | But what was interesting was his cancellation did not last long. |
| 0:47.3 | Only a couple years later, in 2014, he became creative director of Margella, and he's still there today. |
| 0:53.5 | He started to say ugly things about people. |
| 0:56.4 | I just thought, well, that guy's unhappy. |
| 1:01.4 | John Galliano is out of Christian, New York. |
| 1:04.1 | There are people here who are absolutely disgusted by him. |
| 1:06.3 | Can you tell me how you think you ended up in that place? |
| 1:10.0 | Yeah, I'm going to tell you everything. |
| 1:12.9 | So in this episode, we will talk about Galliano's career and our thoughts on the film, |
| 1:17.4 | and also what happens to famous people after they do bad things. I'm Lila, and I'm creatively |
| 1:23.5 | exciting and financially unstable. Joining me from London is the FT's junior fashion editor, |
| 1:29.3 | Ana Chiarra Biondi. She is fabulous and about to discover her wanton past. Hi, Anna |
| 1:35.6 | Kiara. Welcome. Hi, thank you. And also in London, we have the assistant editor of our luxury |
| 1:41.2 | lifestyle magazine, HTSI. And we're not sure why he needs a security guard |
| 1:46.0 | walking down the runway with him. You'll find out. It's the wonderful Louis wise. Hi, Louis, welcome. |
| 1:52.2 | Thank you. Nice to see you. It's nice to see you both too. I'm really excited to have you both on the show. |
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