Deborah Ross

John Galliano shows the cancelled can be uncancelled

This documentary film, however, never gets to the bottom of the celebrated designer's anti-Semitism

John Galliano and Anna Wintour. Credit: Best Image 
issue 09 March 2024

Kevin Macdonald’s documentary High & Low: John Galliano charts the highs and (spectacular) low of the British fashion designer who was fired as creative director of Dior after a number of anti-Semitic tirades came to light. I went into the cinema wanting to hear what Galliano had to say about it all. Why Jews, John? Why not Buddhists? What was going on? But the film never properly gets to the bottom of it. (‘I have no memory of that’ is his favourite reply.)

As to whether the ‘cancelled’ can be ‘uncancelled’, there is a clear answer: yes. He is now riding high and appears to have been forgiven by the fashion world. But whether he’s been forgiven by me is another matter entirely.

The RE teacher at my school used to call me ‘the Christ killer’; for the record, I did not do it

Macdonald, who is best known for Whitney and also that glorious film The Last King of Scotland, does not initially run away from Galliano’s disgrace.

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