BEAUTY: Clothing--John Galliano

It is an awkward time for the House of Galliano. With John Galliano on trial this week in France for Anti-Semitism charges (stemming from an incident in which a drunken Galliano slurred his speech while delivering racial slurs), the first Galliano collection without Galliano was actually created by Bill Gaytten who has been with Galliano for twenty three years. I am reminded of Sarah Burton's close working relationship to McQueen. So if anyone is capable of channeling the Galliano brand, it is Gaytten. And he did so admirably for the SS '12 collection, using 1960s British pop icons as his inspiration. The springboard for the show was a 1974 documentary about English artist David Hockney called "A Bigger Splash"--and so this show was named "Big Splash." To a fantastic, modern, amped-up soundtrack of remixed vintage Who, Rolling Stones, and Kinks songs, models walked the runway looking alternately like Hendirx, Hockney and other 60s rock and roll idols in their hippie/ military jacket/ Native American garb. (It actually reminded me of the costuming for The Cult, the band that did a 60s revival in the 80s!) Somehow, Gaytten made the colorful little schoolboy look of Hockney fit with it all!

This odd mash-up was true to the Galliano spirit, in which he would create a pastiche of various and disparate elements to make some new thing, referencing past times and places yet creating something original in the process.


http://www.johngalliano.com/