Defiant Vogue icon Anna Wintour on Monday issued a fawning statement supporting convicted Hitler-loving haute-couture creator John Galliano — calling him “very courageous’’ after he caved and called off an upcoming Met Gala exhibit about himself.
“John’s decision that the exhibition devoted to his work should not take place at this time is very courageous and a measure of the man he is,’’ said the global fashion diva and magazine legend — digging in her Louboutin heels to still back her embattled buddy amid intense outcry over his personal sins.
“I believe this is the right decision, and both he and the Museum have my full support,” Wintour said in her brief remarks posted on the Met Museum’s website.
Galliano, a onetime Dior wunderkind and A-list designer to the stars, horrified the world when he was caught in videos spewing vile anti-Jewish and -Asian hate around 2011.
Footage captured him hissing to a woman at a Paris cafe that she had an “ugly Jewish face” and telling a man with her, “f–king Asian bastard, I will kill you.”
The designer — who has dressed everyone from Princess Diana to Kim Kardashian — also drunkenly told a Jewish woman, “I love Hitler” while saying her family should have been “gassed” during the Holocaust.
His fall from fashion-world grace was swift — with him dropped by Dior and convicted in France of “public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity.’’ He was issued a fine.
The fashion pariah claimed he was mentally unstable, went to rehab — and appeared to have eventually made amends with some leaders of the Jewish community.
He re-entered the designer world at least partly thanks to the help of the fashion world’s God — Wintour, Vogue’s powerful former longtime editor in chief whose alleged over-the-top antics were immortalized in the 2006 Meryl Streep flick “The Devil Wears Prada.’’
Wintour, who stepped down from her elite top role in 2025 but is still the outlet’s head of editorial content, helped Galliano continue to land work.
She “has been not just his ambassador but his fairy godmother for more than 30 years,” said Dana Thomas, who penned “Gods and Kings,” a biography bout Galliano and fellow iconoclast designer Alexander McQueen, to CNN.
“And much of what exists in his career would not have existed without her complete support, unquestioned support.”
But Wintour could not stop the avalanche of outcry when the Met’s planned tribute to Galliano in Manhattan surfaced several weeks ago.
Jewish leaders refused to accept that someone with his past would be feted, and Galliano finally bowed out himself Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment