John Galliano is turning existing Zara garments into new designs for a collection titled Re{form} Zara Authored by the Couturier John Galliano. The project is described in a profile from a July interview at his atelier in Boulogne-Billancourt, outside Paris. The source text reads like a Vogue-style feature, though it does not name the publication, so this report relies on the article as provided.
A collaboration that drew mixed reactions
When Zara announced in March that it had engaged Galliano, the reaction included anger, disbelief and curiosity. Last month, Galliano and The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that a planned career retrospective would not take place next spring. In a statement, Galliano said he remains accountable for the pain caused by his past words, referring to antisemitic and anti-Asian outbursts in 2010 and 2011. He also said an exhibition honoring his work would be painful for some. He was dismissed from Dior after those incidents, which he attributed to drug and alcohol addiction. He is now 15 years sober.
How the project began
The relationship goes back to 2022, when Galliano met Marta Ortega Pérez, nonexecutive chair of Inditex’s board and the person behind Zara’s collaborations. They met around a Steven Meisel exhibition at her MOP Foundation in La Coruña, Spain. Galliano first said no to a collaboration while still at Maison Margiela, which he left in 2024. Later, over lunch, he floated the concept of Re{form}, and she agreed. Work began quietly in January of this year. The long title is partly a legal matter, since LVMH still owns the John Galliano brand name.
Working from stock
Galliano describes the material as Zara’s archives, though he acknowledges it is essentially stock, garments that were sitting around. These became his working prototypes. He started with everyday pieces such as a long wool-mix coat, a slip dress and a cotton shirt, then cut, pressed and inverted them. In the examples described, a coat is cut away at the front with its pockets moved back, a slip dress is raised until it becomes a large jabot at the neck, and an oversized shirt becomes a jacket printed with a trompe l’oeil leather pattern. Galliano compared the method to what hackers and DJs do, calling it resampling.
The collection includes his familiar signatures: bias-cut gowns in jewel tones, technical tailoring, layers of tulle, ribboned bonnets, cravats, and bicorne hats inspired by Abel Gance’s 1927 film Napoléon. The silhouettes recall les Incroyables, the French Revolution-era dandies who inspired his 1984 Saint Martins graduation collection.
Price and plans
The Zara pieces start at $29.90. By contrast, a Galliano couture piece for Christian Dior sold in January for a record 663,000 euros. Galliano called Inditex’s fabric sourcing and manufacturing facilities jaw-dropping and said he had no intention of dumbing down his work. Ortega Pérez said it is an honor to bring his work to a broad audience for the first time.
His contract with Zara runs for two years and covers four collections in total. Galliano describes Re{form} as the start of the third act of his career, after his early years through Dior and his decade at Margiela. His stated aim for it was simple: he wanted it to be fun.
Source: vogue.com
Stock image for illustration: photo by u_x0clsn5lt5 on Pixabay