Galliano, McQueen and the tragic end of fashion’s wildest era

Share

Once upon a time, not that long ago, when creativity still made the fashion world go 'round, superstar designers helped take tired old brands to lofty new heights, and luxury fashion became not only a major cultural force, but a highly lucrative, $280-billion-a-year global industry. In the thick of it all, two genius British couturiers – John Galliano and Alexander McQueen – rocked the runways with their unparalleled panache and some of the most exquisite designs imaginable. They each arrived on the scene in the mid-1990s, turning minimalism on its ear with their rich, provocative creations and wildly theatrical shows.

Shy and highly sensitive, the two designers, who both grew up in tough London neighbourhoods, initially struggled to get their businesses going. By 1997, though, they were both named creative directors of legendary French houses.

Galliano took the reigns at Dior, while McQueen headed up Givenchy – both labels owned by LVMH tycoon Bernard Arnault. But for both designers, the pressures of the business and fashion's breakneck speed were too much to handle. McQueen committed suicide in 2010 and, a year later, Galliano fell from grace when one of his drunken, anti-Semitic public tirades went viral.

Their poignant, tragic stories are the subject of an explosive new book, Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano by Dana Thomas, author of the New York Times bestseller Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster. Culled from more than 160 new interviews and 30 years' worth of notebooks and press kits, Thomas's powerful tome is a testament to the tragic triumph of commerce over art and a portrait of a remarkable era in fashion that will never be recreated. I recently caught up with Thomas in Paris, where we talked over breakfast at Café de Flore about the two enigmatic and influential designers who changed the way we saw the world before they both crashed and burned.

Your book is the definitive historical account of a golden era that really is no more. I don't think we realized at the time just how short-lived that era would be.

I don't think anybody realized it, and that's what I realized when I was writing this story about John Galliano for the Washington Post during his downfall. I had to write about what this all means and there was a paragraph about all the destruction that had happened in fashion with designers in recent years: Marc [Jacobs] had been to rehab twice; Tom [Ford] was sacked from Gucci and went into a funk for a while, later describing it as a full-out depression; the kid from Balmain [Christophe Decarnin] … had to go seek professional help; McQueen killed himself. So there were all these examples. And I thought, "Well, there's probably more that I wasn't aware of." And then at the same time, I also felt like the era of the star designer really started coming to a close when Tom got fired. After that, it was shrinking fast and the definitive close came with Galliano's downfall.

Would you attribute the demise of artistry in fashion to big business taking over?

Well, not just necessarily big business taking over, but the globalization of everything. Sure, the globalization of fashion – but you can also write the same book about the movie industry or theatre or art. As the business got more global, and the brands became the stars, they needed the designers to make them stars. And then once the brands became stars, the designers became expendable.

One of the biggest heartaches of the whole saga is the fact that these incredibly sensitive souls gravitate to this business, like moths to a flame. And the burnout is just so blatant and inevitable.

A lot of people say, "Oh, fashion isn't art. Fashion is commerce. Fashion is business." Antoine Arnault, who is [LVMH CEO] Bernard Arnault's son, gave me a whole long talk about how it's not art at all – it's just business and, if you want to be an artist, go make art and sell it in galleries. But at the same time, it has creative roots. You need to be a creative person in order to design things to be sold. It's not just a mechanical movement. And generally speaking, creative souls are more sensitive. So it made sense that designers who come from artistic backgrounds – who come from art schools like Central St. Martins [in London] – are applying these instincts, talent and education to a business. But they don't have the business know-how or background or education. They don't have the toughness and ferocity that business people have, who crunch numbers and just want to see profits.

At the end of it all, the pressures of business in particular got to Galliano and McQueen in horrifying ways. Do you see this as a kind of cautionary tale for young people going into the business?

Absolutely. First, Galliano's addictions had been there for ages and ages. He started out as a rowdy partier in the eighties at clubs, who put his nose down to get through his day's work. And when you're in your twenties you can do that. But it mushroomed into something far worse. And McQueen, on the other hand, barely drank, and didn't touch any serious hard drugs until he was in his mid-20s, which is kind of shocking. It seemed like he was self-medicating for all the anxiety and the pressure he was under and also spending all that new-found money he had. But also the cautionary tale I think for young people is: Don't sell your soul. McQueen realized this, and that ate at him, and you'd think Galliano realized it too, but he's just gone and done it again [by signing on to design for Maison Margiela], so maybe he didn't realize it. But if you sell your company to somebody, as Jil Sander learned, you lose control. And to a control freak, there's nothing worse than to lose control. And McQueen was trying to escape. But it made him sad that he built this baby up and now he had to leave it and he couldn't really get off the hamster wheel. Galliano's way of getting off it was getting fired. He was merely an employee at a company that bore his name. Tom Ford learned the difference when he got sacked from Gucci and started with his own money his own company and retained control. And I think that's the biggest lesson of all from the book. If you don't mind being an employee, and the fact that you can get fired at any time, and you don't get to do what you want to do, and you sacrifice your creative integrity to satisfy the man with the profits, then go work for a big corporation. If you can't do that, then don't.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly suggested designer John Galliano used cocaine in his youth. This version has been updated.