Galliano has been ordered to pay €13,500 (roughly $19,000 at current exchange rates) in civil damages to 3 people (we’re assuming, the ones Galliano insulted) and 5 associations. There is also a suspended criminal fine of €6,000, which Galliano will have to pay if he is caught making anti-Semitic  comments in the next 5 years. {Wall Street Journal}

The designer has been in rehab, presumably seeking treatment for addiction issues, since we’re not aware of any rehab facility that treats racism. By the account of many fashion industry insiders, Galliano did not have problems at least filtering offensive opinions when sober.

Galliano still has many friends among top models, magazine editors and the judgment gives some finality to the case which may see that list possibly expanded even to  Jewish business people. While the charges led to his downfall, we wouldn’t be surprised to see that the conviction and rehab stint are the beginning of John Galliano’s comeback.

At last weekend’s other big matrimonial celebration – that would be Kate Moss and Jamie Hince’s wedding, if your media browsing habits made Prince Albert and Princess Charlene’s Monaco to-do second somehow – the bride wore Galliano and it got all of the fashion types talking about a possible comeback for the disgraced designer. Among that talk were rumors that John Galliano hit it off with Topshop CEO Philip Green at Moss’ wedding, and talks were underway for a Topshop collection.

It’s not impossible to think that the two may have greeted each other over wedding cake, but both Green and Galliano say that’s as far as any discussions between the two went.

“I saw John Galliano at Kate’s wedding last Friday. I did not discuss any business with him then, nor have I since,” Green told Vogue UK.

And Galliano is said to be focusing on treating his problems with alcohol.

“His only focus for the foreseeable future is concentrating on his rehab,” a spokesperson for the designer said tonight. “There is no truth in this rumour.” {Vogue UK}

Interestingly, it seems Galliano’s refutation of the rumor is stronger than Green’s. Not discussing business isn’t exactly the same as not happening, which could leave the possibility of a future collaboration open. Galliano’s reponse about the “foreseeable future” is also near term, and wisely deflects professional questions until legal ones are settled. Still, the near term nature of both denials wouldn’t leave us completely shocked to learn of some announcement after Galliano checks out of rehab and any judgments are handed down.

Bernard Arnault has made it clear in no uncertain terms that LVMH won’t be hiring Galliano back, but if the reaction from critics to the Fall/Winter 2011 Couture collection is any indication, they have a long way to go in finding a replacement who can match Galliano’s creative abilities.

Bill Gaytten is a long time Galliano assistant whose attempt at menswear for the John Galliano label was applauded for being more wearable than Galliano’s more flamboyant designs. Giorgio Armani recently sniped at Prada for their more outrageous menswear designs, and Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani is on record with her opposition to men dressing as “fashionistas,” so less experimental menswear designs that stand out for quality tailoring and fit rather than bold colors, patterns or shapes have their fans.

Unfortunately Gayten’s cutting skills didn’t transfer to the couture collection. If we had to come up with a theme, it would be Celestial Carnival – part futuristic fashion victim, part circus barker. Outer orbit prints and shapes collided with cotton candy colors, and imprecise ruffles and folds in looks that were heavy on folly, but never quite made it to the fantasy that Galliano so often delivered.

“Iâ€ve known Mr. Gaytten for a decade. I met him in the Dior studio with Mr. Galliano and Steven Robinson, a close collaborator of Mr. Gallianoâ€s for many years, who oversaw virtually every detail of the collections… I like Mr. Gaytten. Heâ€s a sweetheart, but he is not a designer.

The collection presented Monday, with modern architectural shapes as the reference (at least that explains the dumb cubes and balls embedded in the models†hair), was a hodgepodge… That immaculate Dior polish was not evident. Some long flowing dresses in hand-painted silk looked contemporary enough, but for the most part the clothes looked like over-bright costumes.” – Cathy Horyn {On the Runway/NY Times}

Susanna Venegas and Bill Gaytten at the end of the Fall 2011 Dior Couture show

In other words, it doesn’t look like Gaytten will be Dior’s Sarah Burton (read: a right hand (wo)man who can effectively expand a creative vision when the visionary unexpectedly leaves).

“Then came Karlie Kloss, dressed as a Pierrot, sad clown all alone in the spotlight as the soundtrack failed and glitter showered down. But the stardust missed her by this much. And that felt like some kind of crazy cosmic metaphor.” – Tim Blanks {Style.com}

Pairings

the Kate Moss & Jamie Hince Wedding

We’ll start with some good news. Perennial supermodel Kate Moss married longtime rocker boyfriend Jamie Hince of The Kills in a 1920’s style unstructured John Galliano gown that’s drawn mixed reviews. The groom wore custom Yves Saint Laurent by Stefano Pilatti, as did his best woman Alison Mosshat. Vogue UK reports that Galliano did attend, though he was understandably camera shy. We all remember what happened the last time cameras caught surprise revelations from the former Dior designer, so hopefully there was some non-alcoholic sparkling cider available for him to toast the couple with.

After the wedding, the bride changed into a white 3-piece Stella McCartney pants suit as she and the groom hopped on a helicopter to embark on their honeymoon. McCartney was also in attendance.

The festivities cost a reported £1 million (approximately $1.6 million), and the guest list also included fellow supermodel bestie Naomi Campbell, a bevy of Vogue editors past and present (Anna Wintour, Emanuelle Alt, Carine Roitfeld), newlyweds Lara Stone and David Walliams, Daphne Guiness, Marc Jacobs, Kelly Osbourne and Jude Law.

Sounds like the ultimate bridal fashion show.

the Prince Albert II of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock Wedding

Then we get to the only wedding that could force Kate Moss to change her wedding date. A number of the fashionable guests for Moss’ wedding were also invited to the wedding of Prince Albert of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock (now, Princess Charlene).

The reported$65 million budget makes the Kate Moss affair seem positively low key, but considering the fact that the Prince and Wittstock actually had two weddings, and invited all 30,000+ of Monaco’s residents to take part in some part of the festivities, maybe it’s relatively reasonable. For the record, two weddings is actually common in France, where a civil ceremony is required before a religious ceremony is recognized.

In spite of rumors that Wittstock was considering becoming a runaway bride *three times* amid new paternity tests for Prince Albert (the groom already has two children out of wedlock, and is reported to have fathered two more while dating Wittstock), the couple made it through the official state marriage, and onto a balcony where they shared an awkward kiss.

They're definitely no William and Kate

For their civil ceremony, the bride wore a light blue Chanel suit, and for their church ceremony a custom made Armani Prive gown. The dress featured a 5-meter train, and was studded with crystals and pearls.

Guests included, um, all of Monaco (see previous note), Prince Albert’s ex-girlfriend Naomi Campbell (who had a wedding filled weekend), Karl Lagerfeld (who designed the blue Chanel suit), Giorgio Armani (who designed the wedding dress), French President Nicolas Sarkozy and wife Carla Bruni, as well as too many princes, princesses, kings and queens of various countries to mention individually. There’s no agreement on whether any of Prince Albert’s children or their mothers were in attendance. The palace says no, rumors say his daughter, Jazmin Grace, and Nicole Coste, mother of his son Alexandre, were somewhere amid the well-wishers.

Congratulations to all the happy couples, and good luck to any who aren’t so happy. No names.

Partings

Now for the partings. Because sometimes wedding diamonds aren’t always forever, for every spectacular celebrity wedding this weekend, we got two spectacular celebrity divorces.

the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver Divorce

The Monaco Royal wedding may take the crown for scandalous and excessive weddings, but leave it to Hollywood royalty to show ’em how it’d done when it comes to scandalous and excessive divorce! Maria Shriver officially decided to terminate her marriage to the Governator, and filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences. Which was kind, considering she could have cited messing around with the maid.

The couple will split an estimated $400 million, and custody of their minor children. In total, they have 4 children. If you’re trying to do the math, that’s enough for 1.5 royal weddings for each of them, should there be any eligible princes or princesses.

the Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds Divorce

After just 2 years of marriage, the ink is dry on the divorce papers for Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds. The split was reportedly amicable, with neither seeking spousal support. Probably not easy, but at least it was quick.

the Thomas Jane and Patricia Arquette Divorce

“Hung” star Thomas Jane and former “Medium” star Patricia Arquette also made it official, and sealed the deal on a divorce. There’s a joke about seeing this one coming somewhere in there. The couple will share custody of their 8-year-old daughter. Their marriage lasted approximately 3.5 years. In Hollywood marriage years (sort of like dog years), that’s almost 15 years.

the George Lopez and Ann Serrano Divorce

Then there’s late night comedian George Lopez and wife Ann Serrano, who are calling it quits after 17 years of marriage. They share one minor daughter, and thanks to a life saving donation from Serrano, they share the same kidneys as well (obviously, Serrano has one, Lopez has the other). Fortunately, the couple is trying to keep things amicable on both fronts.

Can you imagine how messy things would be if Serrano filed to get custody of her kidney back? Awwwkward.

According to the Financial Times, Alaia is the only person thus far to confirm that he was offered the job. For those familiar with Alaia’s work, it probably won’t come as much of a surprise that he turned the offer down.

Alaia reportedly described the Galliano debacle as “a sad story,” where he didn’t want to be part of the next chapter.

Aside from that though, there’s the whole difference in approach to the fashion cycle. Dior, like many other major labels, is into the fashion cycle full stop: the standard Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer collections are there, but there’s also resort and couture, and beauty and accessories and probably 10 other things that we aren’t including.

Alaia? Well, many designers talk about wanting to change the fashion cycle and make it make more sense, but Alaia is one of the few designers who actually tries to do something about it. He shows clothes on his own schedule and sends them to retail when he’s ready. Isabel Toledo has worked in this way for a number of years, and Tom Ford’s restrictions are primarily media based though similarly about setting his own schedule. Aside from those three, most established designers are forced to keep up with the modern pace of fashion, which is much more demanding.

Whether that’s good or bad is a matter of perspective, but Alaia is clearly happy with marching to the beat of his own drum, at his own pace.

As for Dior, though Riccardo Tisci is the odds on favorite for the designer to take a bow at the end of the Dior Spring/Summer 2012 show this October, the fact that Dior was seriously considering a name that never made it onto Twitter or blogs means that this really could be any talented designer’s game.

It reads in part:

“However, I fully accept that the accusations made against me have greatly shocked and upset people.

I must take responsibility for the circumstances in which I found myself and for allowing myself to be seen to be behaving in the worst possible light.

I only have myself to blame and I know that I must face up to my own failures and that I must work hard to gain peopleâ€s understanding and compassion. To start this process I am seeking help and all I can hope for in time is to address the personal failure which led to these circumstances and try and earn peopleâ€s forgiveness.

I have fought my entire life against prejudice, intolerance and discrimination, having been subjected to it myself. In all my work my inspiration has been to unite people of every race, creed, religion and sexuality by celebrating their cultural and ethnic diversity through fashion. That remains my guiding light.

Anti-semitism and racism have no part in our society. I unreservedly apologise for my behaviour in causing any offence.”

via Fashionista

We promise, unless John Galliano personally invites us over for a drink, this is one of the last things we’ll mention about this story, but Vogue UK rounded up various quotes on Galliano and we happened upon this gem:

“I think Galliano needs to justify what he’s done,” Max Clifford, PR and damage-control expert, told WWD. “He needs two or three Jewish friends to come forward and tell the public that he is not remotely anti-Semitic in all the years they have known him. Or he has to say it was meant to be a funny rant, or that he was just trying to annoy to the people sitting next to him.”

What?!

As we predicted, a number of statements are so enamored with Galliano’s skill that they separate it from his social failings, but that particular piece of advice fails on so many levels that we can’t wonder how much Clifford was drinking before he offered it.

For starters, there are probably two things Galliano could offer to justify what appeared on that video: an evil twin or multiple personality disorder, with one personality being kind, genius fashion designer and the other being drunk Nazi admirer. Since we haven’t heard either of those tossed out as possibilities, there really isn’t any justifying the level of stupidity Galliano demonstrated.

Though he can say crazy things of his own, Karl Lagerfeld actually sums it up pretty well in his statement to WWD:

“I’m furious that it could happen. Because the question is no longer even whether he really said it. The image has gone around the world. It’s a horrible image for fashion, because they think that every designer and everything in fashion is like this. This is what makes me crazy in that story.

The thing is, we are a business world where, especially today, with the internet, one has to be more careful than ever, especially if you are a publicly known person. You cannot go in the street and be drunk – there are things you cannot do.”

This from the man who seems to confuse Facebook and the iPad.

Then we get to the other gems within this polished PR dropping: “he needs two or three Jewish friends.” Really? Galliano just needs a token Jew or two? Let’s find a black friend for David Duke to hang out with, that would totally change his image.

“Or he has to say it was meant to be a funny rant.” The only people who might find Galliano’s rant funny are other bigots, possibly bigots who encouraged him to play the role of a World War II era bigot. Unless the conversation immediately preceding that video rant is “okay John, just like we practiced, give us your best impression of a bigot!” it’s difficult to imagine anyone could find that video to be anything but sad on many, many levels.

“Or that he was just trying to annoy to the people sitting next to him.” Really? Really? Max, are you and Charlie Sheen on the same stuff? We hear he has a PR opening, so there might be an opportunity there, but back to this. You know what would be annoying? A designer telling someone she has an ugly bag and ugly eyebrows. We actually thought that was fairly funny, and it was probably annoying as well. Do you know what’s not annoying? Someone talking about loving Hitler and gassing people.

Annoying: “You have an ugly bag, ugly eyebrows, your shoes are cheap, your breath smells and you do look fat in that outfit.”

Bigoted: “I love Hitler. People like you would be gassed.”

See how that’s more hateful,  insulting and disgusting, than funny or annoying?

No? Well, take our word for it, there’s a difference. We haven’t been doing PR as long as you have, but allow us to take a stab in the dark here and revise your piece of advice.

Galliano should first of all acknowledge what he’s done. He should have two or three mental health or alcohol abuse professionals come forward and tell the public that they are helping him address his deep personal issues. Or, he has to say sincerely that there was no excuse or justification for the things that came out of his mouth, and the sheer level of stupidity that led him to drink to the point where he couldn’t conduct himself publicly in an acceptable way.

Fixed that for you.

John Galliano has gone from suspended to unemployed after video of the designer making a number of disgusting comments surfaced yesterday.

The New York Times reports that Dior CEO Sidney Toledano, himself Jewish, confirmed that proceedings were moving from suspension to dismissal.

“He condemned ‘‘in the strongest termsâ€â€ Mr. Gallianoâ€s words, ‘‘which are in total contradiction with the essential values that have always been defended by the Christian Dior house.” – NYT

This follows a statement by recent Oscar winner Natalie Portman, who is also the face of Miss Dior Cherie perfume. Though her publicists wouldn’t allow her to comment in a question posed in the press scrum after the Oscars, Portman did speak out saying that she was “deeply shocked and disgusted by the video. As an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr. Galliano in any way.”

It’s not clear if the actress’ statement had any effect on the decision to move from suspension to firing.

Galliano maintains that he did not use antisemitic language in the incident which sparked the initial complaint, even going so far as to file defamation charges against the couple. Police are still investigating, and though Galliano faces a fine and jail time if he should be convicted, no official court proceedings have been announced.

Both the upcoming Dior and John Galliano fashion shows are scheduled to go ahead on schedule, though it’s highly doubtful that Galliano will fulfill his lawyer’s promise of appearing at the end of the show “as usual.”

Considering the statements of witnesses at Le Perle who stated that Galliano did not make any anti-Semitic comments, we’ve tried to reserve judgment in the event that Galliano’s comments in English were misinterpreted or misheard by the French couple making the accusations.

The Huffington Post is reporting that a second complaint was filed Saturday by a woman who claims that a drunk Galliano made anti-Semitic comments to her in October 2010 at La Perle, the same Parisian bar where the original verbal altercation took place. It’s not clear if the video the Sun obtained is from either the October 2010 incident, or the more recent one.

Galliano is currently suspended from Dior over the initial allegations, and while his lawyer or Dior have yet to confirm or deny the veracity of this video, it certainly doesn’t help Galliano’s case for claiming that the complaint is defamatory. Frankly, it’s beyond disappointing for those who were hoping that the claims of defamatory remarks by the designer were a case of something being lost in translation (that includes us). Short of the person in the video obtained by The Sun being a very convincing John Galliano look-a-like, it’s difficult to find any kind of balancing side to this.

Sure, everyone says stupid things when they’re drunk, but when those stupid things are consistently racist it’s probably a good sign that the person is indeed bigoted. If said person can’t control their alcohol intake to filter their bigoted thoughts, it’s probably not something you want to associate your company with – unless your company is some kind of neo-Nazi organization. While we still support a full investigation into the events of the original incident, we’ve also supported Dior’s action as necessary. With new accusations and videos emerging, the immediate suspension looks more and more like the smartest thing Dior could have done as a company to separate the allegations from the brand as a whole.

Yesterday we reported that John Galliano was suspended from his job at Dior over allegations of antisemitic comments, but also that a witness challenged the veracity of the designer making antisemitic remarks in the first place.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Galliano has filed a defamation lawsuit against the couple making the allegations, and has provided three witness statements that support Galliano’s claim that he did not make any antisemitic remarks.

As we reported yesterday, in France racist comments are not seen as protected speech, but remarks that could be seen as damaging to a person’s reputation are not always protected either. In this situation it seems that both Galliano and the couple who’ve accused him of hurling defamatory insults have a case, though who wins will likely come down to what observers heard.

The witness who spoke to Sleek Magazine says that they heard Galliano refer to the man in the couple as Asian, and insult the woman’s handbag (that we can believe, but let’s not get the poor purse involved), but nothing about religion. If other observers corroborate that account, the couple could find themselves at fault for making allegations that have already done some damage to the designer’s reputation not just in theory, but in reality, as Galliano is suspended until the investigation is concluded.

Galliano’s attorney said that his client would be on the runway for the upcoming Dior Fall/Winter 2011 show, but no matter how brilliant the collection, it’s safe to say clothes won’t be the only thing on observers’ minds at the end of the show.