Galliano says collaboration with Zara has restored his “spontaneity and energy”

Following the cancellation of the exhibition dedicated to his career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Met), John Galliano is unveiling Re{form} this Thursday – his project with Zara – through which he says he has regained his spontaneity and energy.

“It’s John before Galliano! At the start of their careers, all designers deconstruct garments to learn how they’re made, don’t they? This project has given me back my spontaneity and energy,” he said in an interview with Le Figaro on Wednesday, on the eve of the Paris launch of the first phase of the initiative.

“It reminded me of my early days, when I didn’t have all the resources I have today,” adds the 65-year-old designer.

The collaboration with Zara came about thanks to his friendship with Inditex’s chair, Marta Ortega.

“She takes a keen interest in my creative process and I’m impressed by the incredible company she runs, founded by her father with a very strong vision of fashion and its accessibility. And we also have a lot in common: our Spanish roots (John Galliano was born in Gibraltar) and our passion for Hemingway,” he explained.

The project involves reinterpreting Zara’s archives – although he admits that some people question whether the word ‘archives’ can be applied to the Spanish brand – in a way that, according to Galliano, is akin to literary rewriting or a DJ’s remix.

“We started working on this well in advance of the partnership being made official. I put together a small team of young designers who were readily recognisable as part of my team,” he says of the process.

“We wouldn’t have been able to have a workshop in the centre of Paris without attracting attention. I wanted to be able to work in peace,” he adds.

Best known for his time at Christian Dior (1996–2011) as creative director of the womenswear and haute couture divisions, where he revolutionised the fashion house by fusing technical virtuosity with theatricality and opulence, Galliano says he still loves fashion, although after his time at Margiela (2015–2024) he needed time to decide what to do next.

And he was clear that whatever he did had to “be fun”, he adds.

“Fashion must continue to be capable of eliciting emotion, of creating a memory, of inspiring dreams or of unsettling. But at the same time, the public today asks much more direct questions,” he explains in the interview.

That is why he considers change to be “healthy”, as “fashion has no choice but to question itself”.

“As the game of musical chairs among designers demonstrates. There’s a whole new, very interesting generation, but the world is changing and the way we think about fashion must change too,” he says.

Regarding prices in the luxury sector and the affordability of fashion, Galliano points out that the accessibility of design is a subject that has always fascinated him.

“We’re already there today: the younger generation is extraordinarily well informed. They understand much better how products are made, how brands operate and what lies behind a price tag. Social media has completely transformed their relationship with fashion. The period we’re about to experience is going to be thrilling!”, he reflected.

The interview did not address the Met controversy, which arose after the plan to dedicate a major retrospective exhibition to him at its Costume Institute, alongside the Met Gala, sparked strong outrage among leaders of the Jewish community, politicians and the institution’s donors.

They considered it unacceptable to honour the designer due to the racist and antisemitic incidents and insults for which he was convicted in 2011; faced with this pressure and threats to withdraw donations, the Met and Galliano himself decided to cancel the project outright.