The Problem With John Galliano: Even More Designers Defend Him, Patricia Field Calls It “Farce”

As you know, John Galliano has fallen spectacularly from grace.

You may also know that John Galliano is an extraordinary designer, and up until this week, was doing much of that extraordinary work at Dior (no word on what will happen to his namesake label).

After a drunken incident in a Paris cafe (in which he allegedly made racist and anti-Semitic comments) saw him suspended by Dior pending investigation, a grainy video leaked of a (presumably) separate incident, in which the designer drunkenly exclaims that he “loves Hitler” and tells the women filming that their ugliness is the kind that would have gotten them “gassed” (again, presumably) during the Holocaust. Yesterday, Dior began proceedings to fire him officially.

The fashion industry’s reception of the scandal has been varied. Karl Lagerfeld is pissed. Yet few have expressed the kind of straight-forward condemnation of Miss Dior Cherie face Natalie Portman, who was “disgusted.” Many of the statements have expressed sorrow without condemnation, like Stefano Gabbana’s or model Chanel Iman’s. Purple‘s Olivier Zahm doesn’t seem to care what the situation was.

Now, power stylist/costume designer Patricia Field has come to Galliano’s defense in a way that strikes me as… peculiar. Here’s what she said:

“People in fashion all they do is go and see John Galliano theater every season. That’s what he gives them. To me, this was the same except it wasn’t in a theater or in a movie. John lives in theater. It’s theater. It’s farce. But people in fashion don’t recognize the farce in it. All of a sudden they don’t know him. But it’s okay when it’s Mel Brooks’s The Producers singing ‘Springtime for Hitler.’ They don’t even see the farce in it. Fashion people who know him have not come forward. They know his theater. Believe me — my name is Field — my stepfather was Jewish.”

1. Let’s paraphrase: “You don’t get it.” As in, him telling strangers in a cafe that their ugliness would get them gassed is actually a kind of arid high comedy that we don’t understand. In other words, “He’s always performing! Everything is an illusion! NOTHING IS REAL!” This is absurd.

2. She compared his drunken announcement that he “loves Hitler” to The Producers. Which, I mean, sure… concerns Hitler. So those two different things are… at least tangentially related.

3. Then she pulls the old “I should know, my [blank] is [blank].” Which is a fun game to play. Like, “I can casually use the word faggot because my second cousin (twice removed!) is gay.” I’m going to blink stupidly at this explanation for a while and hope that when I come to, the fashion industry will be a little bit less permissive of this kind of behavior. That means you too, Olivier Zahm.

Adding to the fray is Roberto Cavalli, who said:

“John Galliano? I don’t believe it because I know John since many years. He’s such a wonderful person. I can’t believe that he makes some racist toward somebody, because he’s so international…I think that somebody wants to try to be bad with him. I think la Maison Dior should make to him a big red carpet because he helped Maison Dior to be what it is today. I don’t want to judge anybody, but I love John. John, I am with you.”

…So, a big red carpet. And why shouldn’t they? He’s bringing them so much press, too!

Look, I think John Galliano is a genius. And he made Dior what it is today, absolutely. John Galliano is a great artist, but to identify an ugliness that came out of him in this video is not to marginalize his impact and talent. Just because Galliano said some really ugly things doens’t mean he is not a great designer. These are separate conversations.

I don’t think this incident marks him forever and that he should crawl into a hole and never come out. I think he made an awful, ugly mistake and he should take responsibility for it. It’s unfortunate that he has to do that in front of the world, but just about everyone I know (including myself) has said stupid, offensive, awful things when inebriated. But we still must take responsibility for them and not try to pass them off as lapses, or partial accounts, or unfair media practices, or, of all things, “farce.” Because that’s bullshit.

Frankly, what I find more offensive than Galliano’s drunken foolishness is fashion industry types trying to say this situation is anything but what it is: a bombastically creative and original artist having too much to drink and exposing a kind of bitter nastiness within him that surprised us all. I don’t think this means he’s a horrible person, because I don’t believe that John Galliano actually loves Hitler. If it was a joke, it was a stupid one and it wasn’t funny. But I don’t think anyone can watch that video and see a man who is serious and in his right mind. He’s being a drunk asshole. Most of us have been drunk assholes. Maybe the character of our drunken stupidity hasn’t been as awful as slurring “I love Hitler,” but maybe it’s been even worse. Most of us just aren’t famous enough to be filmed while we embarrass ourselves.

I think the problem with John Galliano is, in a lot of ways, other people. Just because you know him personally, because he’s a great artist, because he changed fashion forever, because he’s important, because he’s usually a nice guy, or because this is really inconsistent with the person you know… none of that explains this away. Galliano’s behavior and statements are simply ugliness and stupidity. They’re nothing else. Galliano needs to go away for a time and go about his atonement quietly and privately. He’ll need to figure out what that means.

Joking or not, “performing” or not, genuine bigot or drunkenly employing the language of bigotry: whatever. It looks like Galliano has some demons. And he’d do well to take them seriously, not pretend they’re anything but what they are.